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Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Roza Shanina

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The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Article promoted. Anotherclown (talk) 22:32, 3 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Roza Shanina edit

Nominator(s): Brandmeistertalk


I am nominating this article for A-Class review for some feedback before future FA nomination (on April 3, 2014 there will be the 90th anniversary of Shanina's birth). The article is currently a GA and has been copyedited. Brandmeistertalk 16:15, 25 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Support

  • (although that was subsequently considered a likely exaggeration) Are you saying that it is not true?
  • between 2 and 3 am when the doors were locked Were the doors locked between 2 and 3 am, or did she return then? Re-word.
  • Keep the date formatting consistent. Prefer day first, as this is the one used in Russia.
  • Major Degtyarev—the commander of the 1138th Rifle Division No, according to your source he was the commander of the 1138 cп (стрелковый полк = Rifle Regiment)
  • References required for last paragraph of "Tour of Duty" and the two paragraphs in "Diary"

All in all, very well well done. For an FA, you'll probably want to get Dan K or another copy editor to smooth the prose a bit. Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:15, 6 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comments; I'm a bit pushed for time so some quick comments now, and more later!

  • although diaries were strictly prohibited in the Soviet military,[38] there were some exceptions; so.. these exceptions were authorised? And Shanina's was or wasn't?
  • I'm afraid you totally lost me in the East Prussia section with her changing tally. She starts with 42, then reportedly kills 5, and ends up on 46? I'm guessing what you're communicating here is that there were many contradictory/incomplete reports. Also, your dates jump back and forth in a confusing manner. I'd suggest working through it strictly chronologically.
  • and her achievements were acknowledged particularly by Ilya Ehrenburg; where did he acknowledge them? In fact this whole sentence starts to stretch out - perhaps consider splitting it in two and expanding on the matter.
  • In the same record she wrote that today she agrees to go "even to a melee combat" and that she had no fear; tense here is a bit confusing.
    • You've not quite sorted this one :) Sorry, my fault for being too vague. In the same record she wrote that today she; this makes no sense as presented in the present tense. You actually change the one past-tense word that was appropriate :)
    • Also; is this direct quote? some unknown force draws her to the front line; does she refer to herself in the third person?
  • Consider reviewing user of -ly adverbs; often they can be removed or replaced with more specific words, to improve the prose.

More later. --Errant (chat!) 11:50, 12 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • Done, will try to smooth the prose further. I couldn't figure out where exactly Ehrenburg acknowledged Shanina (probably in a war newspaper), but it was on Sept 17, 1944 according to one of my refs. Brandmeistertalk 11:39, 14 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Support Comments: G'day, interesting article. Good work on getting it to this point. It still needs a bit of work to take it to A-class in my opinion, though. The main issue, I think is the prose, which doesn't seem to flow naturally at the moment. I will try to list some of the issues that I see:

  • the Early life section probably should mention her date of birth. Likewise, I think that the Death section should mention her date of death (unless I missed it, it only seems to be in the lead and infobox);
  • "became eligible for the military draft, but Shanina was initially refused". Do we know why she was refused?
  • "amid the hardships of World War II, that spilled into the Soviet land": uncited and sounds probably a bit too emotive for an encyclopedia;
  • there is a mixture of US and British English variation. For instance "kilometres" (British), but also "honors" (US);
  • date format: "2 April, 1944" --> "2 April 1944" per WP:DATESNO (there are a few instances of this that should be cleaned up;
  • "2 and 3 am" --> "2:00 and 3:00 am";
  • this seems like it is missing something: "Shanina was accepted in Vsevobuch for military training". Would this work: "Shanina was accepted into the Vsevobuch program for military training"?
  • is there a reference for this: "Around that time she became a squad commander in the female sniper platoon"?
  • not sure about the tense here: "would be backlit by sunlight and the sniper's nest becomes visible". Perhaps this would be smoother: "was backlit by sunlight and the sniper's nest became visible";
  • inconsistent caps: "2nd Class Order of Glory" v. "1st class Order of Glory";
  • is there a reference for this: "for bravery displayed in the East Prussian Offensive"?
  • this is unclear: "was ordered to engage the female snipers in combat". Do you mean, "was ordered to commit the female snipers to combat"?
  • "Shanina wrote that despite her wish to be in a safer place, "some unknown force draws her to the front line"". Did she really refer to herself like that? Perhaps you mean, "some unknown force draws me to the front line"?
  • Medal "For Courage" --> the quotation marks seem out of place. Is the whole thing a proper noun and are the quotes correct?
  • inconsistent presentation of dates: for instance - "September 20, 1944. Retrieved 2010-12-27";
  • this seems a bit awkward: "Recalling the moment of receiving the death notification by Shanina's mother" Perhaps this might be smoother, "Recalling the moment Shanina's mother received notification of her daughter's death";
  • "In 1964–65, a renewed interest in Shanina, largely due to the publication of her diary, arose in the Soviet press". --> "In 1964–65, there was a renewed interest in Shanina, largely due to the publication of her diary";
  • I'm not sure, but I think "File:Roza Shanina.jpg" requires a Russian licence, indicating why the image is PD in its country of origin as well as in the US;
  • as above for "File:Roza Shanina with badge.jpg";
  • are there references for these statements: "Shanina kept the diary from 6 October, 1944 to 24 January, 1945." and "Several of Shanina's letters and some data from her sniper log have also been published."?
  • "File:Roza Shanina, 1944.jpg": I'm not sure that you can maintain a valid fair use rationale for this image given that you seemingly have PD images of the subject already and this one doesn't provide anything that the others don't. Is it possible that the image is in fact PD? If so, then you would be able to use it without any dramas?
  • inconsistent referencing style. For instance compare note 23 & 26 with note 25 & 27 etc.

If you can fix these issues, or make comment on them here, I'd be more than happy to take another look. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 13:09, 19 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • Thanks, the majority is now fixed. The reference for "she became a squad commander" exists, I just have to dig it out again. Regarding the tense in "would be backlit by sunlight" I mean future-in-the-past tense. The reference for "bravery displayed in the East Prussian Offensive" is the commendation list scan on the right within the article. Concerning dates in references, WP:DATESNO allows for different representation of them for conciseness. Concerning "In 1964–65" I tried your suggestion, but it appears to distort the subsequent part "in the Soviet press..." The image licenses are now clarified. I think that the copyrighted pic falls under fair use because it appears to be the only known photo of Shanina in full height and as such has unique historical value. As for referencing style, I decided to use harvard where refs are located on different pages of the same book (except online sources, where there is abcd style). Elsewhere, where there's only one ref from one source, ordinary style is used. Brandmeistertalk 21:09, 21 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • G'day, your changes look good. I made a few more tweaks (please check that you are happy with those and adjust as you see fit). Regarding the fair use image, I'm not sure that it is a sufficient claim just because it is the only available full height image. To be a valid fair use image, it needs to "provide critical commentary about her" (quote from the fair use rationale on the image). The article does not do this IMO (i.e. the article does not use the image to specifically illustrate a critical point). That said, its not really a battle I'm prepared to invest too much time on. Wiki's image licencing policies are vexing, and IMO subjective and unevenly applied, so I propose to agree to disagree on this point and move on. As such, if you can add the citation for the "squad commander" sentence and the bit about her portrait featuring in the newspaper (I've marked it with a "citation needed" tag), then I will be happy to support for promotion to A-class. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 09:52, 23 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • The requested refs are now there, other changes look good. Thanks. Brandmeistertalk 12:26, 26 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

CommentsSupport. Very interesting article. A few initial comments:

  • the Ustyansky District link is duplicated twice
  • no dablinks, reflinks ok, earwig only hit a mirror (No action needed on these)
  • checklinks indicates three dead links and timed out on two others [1]
  • no alt text on images (not an A Class requirement, but suggested)
  • foreign book titles need a trans_title field
  • The citations in the lead are unnecessary, the lead should reflect the body, so these matters should be cited in the body where they are presented in more detail.
  • I'm going to make some copyedits, feel free to revert them if they change the meaning.

I'll post some more when I've had a chance to go right through it.All done with the c/e.

  • a citation is needed for "Several of Shanina's letters and some data from her sniper log have also been published."

That's me done. Peacemaker67 (send... over) 09:52, 1 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • Thanks, done (web archive parameter added to dead links except ref 31, which wasn't archived, cache version seems to fail there as well, trans_title field added elsewhere, lead citations relocated). Brandmeistertalk 00:02, 3 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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