Talk:Battle of Bautzen (1945)/GA1

GA Review
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Reviewer: Wizardman  Operation Big Bear 18:44, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

The first external link is dead Ajh1492 (talk) 14:27, 28 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Fix the DAB link on Reichenbach.
 * Check the Alt links on the images - there are a limited number of images
 * Need to apply convert tag to all units of measurement (kilometers, etc.)

Ajh1492 (talk) 15:17, 28 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Lede doesn't necessarily summarize the article. Would be nice to have a short blurb on the post-war view of the battle and surrounding controversy
 * What about subsections in Battle - that's a large chunk of text to see at once.
 * Might want to populate the units tag in the infobox.

Otherwise It's in good shape. Ajh1492 (talk) 15:18, 1 August 2011 (UTC)
 * All done. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; talk 21:48, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Comment
According to the source used for the German casualties, those 6,500 is only a Polish estimate which some "historians consider to be inflated". You may should add that in a footnote. StoneProphet (talk) 03:18, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

A general problem seems to be the rather uncritical usage of sources published by the People's Republic of Poland's official military publishing house in 1967. Is it actually possible to write an "unbiased" article almost exclusively based on such a source? HerkusMonte (talk) 16:28, 6 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Um, for the record, the 6500 number is NOT from a source from the People's Republic of Poland - but it does indeed say that 'some historians consider it to be inflated" (which should probably be mentioned). Likewise, the article is NOT based "almost exclusively" on "such a source".Volunteer Marek (talk) 08:26, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I see the note has been added, and yes, the article uses modern sources to supplement the older ones. Hence the "Historiography" section. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; talk 21:48, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Does the reviewer have any further notes to add? Wizardman  Operation Big Bear 15:11, 27 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I guess we will know soon: . But if not, I'd appreciate another reviewer stepping in. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; talk to me 15:55, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Here's my comments on the article lead:
 * Reichenbach links to a disambiguation page right now; have it link to the right area.
 * The lead seems to jump right into the battle; the first sentence doesn't really need to be more than noting where and when the battle was fought, along with who fought it. The second sentence can then start with "It was fought on the extreme southern flank.."
 * "The battle took place during Konev's" have Ivan Konev's full name here and linked since it's the first mention in the article.
 * "Bautzen - Niesky." shouldn't this have the same dash and spacing as Spremberg–Torgau? I could be wrong about that though. should probably say Bautzen-Niesky line rather than as is.

I'll review the rest later tonight. Wizardman Operation Big Bear 21:27, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Done all but the dashes, which I'll admit I don't understand well. Feel free to change them or tell me how to change them if you figure that out :) --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; talk to me 22:04, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
 * The dashes I don't understand all that well myself; in the edit window they all look the same, so I won't worry about it. Here's the rest of what I found:


 * "changing the priorities he was given by Konev; " should be a comma
 * "Wawer and Solak" full names due to first mention. Took be a couple reads to realize those were referring to authors of the source.
 * "army had one officer for each 1,200 soldiers[13]).[2]" The two refs can just be put after the period to make it cleaner.
 * "1st Armoured Corps, pushing towards Dresden," first comma not needed.
 * "Muskauer Forst (forest) region" the stuff in parentheses doesn't seem necessary; I would like to think lay readers could figure out that means forest.
 * The Drive on Dresden section is very parenthesis-heavy, which makes it hard to read. Any way some of the longer bits there can be meshed into the article?
 * "Polish 2nd Army lost cohesion, split" The Polish...and split..
 * "On April 21," 21 April; make sure all dates are in this format.

I'm stopping here for now because I'm getting tired for the day, but also because I'm concerned about the prose, as this has been a tough read for me so far. I'll read through it again tomorrow, but honestly I'm leaning towards failing this so far. Hopefully the article gets better the further in I get. Wizardman Operation Big Bear 03:45, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

I'll put the article on hold and pass when the issues are fixed. Wizardman Operation Big Bear 03:45, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Reality sometimes intrudes upon other activities. The comments from Wizardman sounds good. Ajh1492 (talk) 15:27, 30 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Re "Wawer and Solak" - I think it is customary to use only surnames of authors. Would you still ask for the first names if it was "Smith and Johnson"?
 * Re ""On April 21," 21 April" - I believe MoS allows either, as long as it is consistent, and I am pretty sure the dates are consistent with the month XX format.
 * I am rather surprising with your comments about the prose, the few minor details you noted seem, well, very minor to me (fixable, of course, but to speak of failing...). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; talk to me 17:28, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Was a bit surprised myself, since I've read your article before and usually been impressed. I chalked it up to lack of sleep, and as such here's a full review now:
 * Note which sources are in Polish like you do for the one in German.
 * "and was taking part in the Soviet Berlin Offensive." and took part sounds less passive.
 * "The events of the April 21" of April 21
 * "Polish 2nd Army lost cohesion" and "Polish 7th and 10th Infantry Divisions" The Polish
 * The Polish retreat section seems to go from 22nd to 26th to 24th to 25th. Either i'm misreading or it's chronologically off as is.
 * "bloody house-to-house combat, according to Bernd Eberhardt the halt was a result of the lack of fuel supplies." According should start a new sentence, or at least the comma should be replaced with a semicolon.
 * "and retreat west, with majority of the" retreated, a majority.

It reads much better today, so my earlier comments don't apply. Article remains on hold and I'll pass it after these are addressed. Wizardman Operation Big Bear 02:59, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks, all should be done. I hope that the revised retreat section is now more chronological. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; talk to me 05:00, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Everything checks out now after another look-through, so I'll pass the article as a GA. Wizardman  Operation Big Bear 15:19, 2 September 2011 (UTC)