Talk:George II of Greece/GA1

GA Review
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Reviewer: Johannes Schade (talk · contribs) 10:45, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

I decided to review the article George II of Greece nominated by User:WikiUserREAL on 3 November 2020 for GA status. Johannes Schade (talk) 10:45, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

Lead section
Wikipedia lead sections should give the reader a well balanced summary of the article's main body. The lead, as it is now, is too short (see MOS:LEADLENGTH) and not well balanced. On one hand it omits to mention major points made in the main body. For example, it should probably say something about George II and World War II.

On the other hand, the lead states facts that do not appear in the body. His relationship with Prince Philip and Kaiser Wilhelm seems to appear only in the lead. If this is important enough to appear in the lead, it should be substantiated in the body. The right place for such family background is probably somewhere near its beginning in the article's first section entitled "Early life and first period of kingship".

The first sentence of the lead section opens three nested parentheses but closes only two of them. Even if they were balanced, that makes a lot of parentheses. I would suggest to give only years in the lead (as is permitted by MOS:BIRTHDATE), which would allow to omit the O.S. date and the parenthesis around this, and relegate the precise dates to the first section of the body and also explain the O.S. at that occasion. However, there might be other solutions.Johannes Schade (talk) 14:01, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

Hello!
Dear WikiUserREAL. I should probably have pinged you earlier. Something seems to have gone wrong and I believe you were not automatically alerted of the start of the review of the article George II of Greece, which you nominated for GA status. First of all I therefore want to bid you a belated Welcome to the review process. The process consists of a discussion between you and me and possibly other reviewers and other editors. This discussion should take place on this GA talk page that is dedicated to it. My role is to point out deficiencies in the article where I believe that it does not meet the GA criteria (see WP:GACR). Your role is to edit the article to make it compliant or to convince me that my demands are unreasonable. Please always reply to my demands, suggestions or observations. Your opinion as the subject expert is appreciated. At the end, usually after 7 days that we might count from now, I will either promote or fail the article. Should I fail it, you can renominate the article immediately and restart with a different reviewer. Hoping for a good collaboration and a success at the end, yours Johannes Schade (talk) 14:56, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

Hi!
Hello and thanks for the recommendations, I have changed it from "George II (Γεώργιος Βʹ, Geórgios II; (19 July (O.S.: 7 July 1890) – 1 April 1947)" to "George II (Γεώργιος Βʹ, Geórgios II); (7 July [ O.S: 19 July] 1890 – 1 April 1947)" to fix the missing bracket and removed a pair of brackets and changed it to [] so the full dates can be kept without a overflow of brackets.

I have also moved a sentence to the summary, "He had to flee his country twice in his life, once during the abolition of the Greek Monarchy and in the Second World War. On account of his exiles, he is said to have remarked that "the most important tool for a King of Greece is a suitcase.". is now inside of the summary making it better in the summarization of George II's life.

I have tried access to sources you have provided me but unfortunately the books from archives.org do not load on my laptop and I cannot read the PDF in French.

Apologies if this is in the wrong section in the page, this is the first real time I have written something on a talk page.

TheRealWikiUser (talk) 19:01, 24 November 2020 (UTC)


 * Dear TheRealWikiUser. Glad to finally meet you. That is all fine. I have seen your changes. You are big enough not to follow my suggestion literally. You have your own style. I do not understand how you cannot find the books in Internet Archive. I also work on a laptop and quite a bottom quality one. You must register on Internet Archive. It is for free and has no downsides. I would think that Internet Archive must ask its readers for a registration mainly for book-lending practical reasons. They have old books that are free, unlimited access and then books still under copyright that are also free but that you must take out electronically and they are allowed to lend out only limited numbers. Without an account they would not be able to know which books you have taken out. I usually take books out only for one hour while I am reading and working on the computer and return it as soon as I do not need it any more. It sometimes happens that all copies are taken and you must wait, but it is a rare occasion. You should be able to just paste the given URLs into your browser or better make your own searches. Internet Archive is a marvel. I cannot imagine writing something on Wikipedia without it. With regard to Driault's PDF, do you mean to say that you cannot read French at all? That would be a pity as the article about Georges II in the French Wikipedia is much better than the one in the English one, to the point of being even a bit too long and too detailed. I can help you to some extent on that side. My wife happens to be French and we speak it often at home.


 * I have registered with the Internet Archive but the books still wont load even when I borrow it I think this is because of the bad internet at my house; And yes I cannot read French at all. TheRealWikiUser (talk) 08:15, 25 November 2020 (UTC)


 * I see what you mean with won't load. That also happens to me sometimes and then have to try again or just wait patiently until it does load. It seems to be much more frequent with your line.

Date of birth
The article gives the date of birth as 11:00 19 July 1890, but the citation [3] which is the nearest after this statement gives 7/20 July. How do you explain the contradiction? It appears that this source https://www.greekroyalfamily.gr/timeline/birth-of-king-george-b.html is self-published and poor quality, at least the English text. Can you read Greek? This reference is not used in the French article, probably for good reasons. The book by Julia P. Gelardi, cited in the French article (but the book is in English), gives the date on page 24: 19 July 1890 (N.S.). Please cite the book for the date of birth. Besides I propose to use sfn for all the inline citations. Many and probably most are already using it. It would be nice to have all the inline citations in the same format, but this is not a GA requirement. Gelardi's book is available on Internet Archive:



I would remove the reference [3] and also the "121 cannons were fired from the shots of Athens" (whatever this should mean?) it probably is a bad translation of the Greek. This comes from the cited website. With best regards, Johannes Schade (talk) 21:35, 24 November 2020 (UTC)


 * I have removed the sentence and used the source you have provided for the D.O.B I think it was a badly translated and a poorly made website TheRealWikiUser (talk) 07:55, 25 November 2020 (UTC)


 * Thank you very much! We seem to agree on that one.

Lead revisited
We are not finished with the lead section. You must write some carefully phrased sentences summarising the main events of his life. The "Suitcase" quotation you added cannot replace a summary. I think you know this well and agree with me on that topic. It is a sine qua non for the GA.
 * The birth date is now only in the lead. That seems to be acceptable, but is perhaps slightly unusual. See WP:MOSBIO and the examples given there. I would have repeated it in the first paragraph of the body and moved the citation there. I feel that leads normally should vbe free of citations but there are exceptions and different oprinions on the matter. Please change the citation style from to and add the  to the list of sources. This is the predominant citation style as the article is now. I personally would write the inline citation as  to provide a clickable link and a quote, but the predominant style in the article is simpler, e.g.  . Why did you add "24:00" as a time? On what is it based?

Suitcase quote
I would feel that the suitcase quote should probably go back to where it was before in the text or to the paragraph describing his final stay on Crete before being evacuated to Egypt as it seems that it is there that he made this remark. The source is the book by Antony Beevor. I find it on Internet Archive with the date 1994:



You cite it as Beevor 2004. That is different edition that I cannot find online. I feel that the accessible edition should take precedence. In the 1994 edition the quote appears on page 63 and reads "the most essential piece of equipment for any King of Greece was a Revelation suitcase". Revelation is a trademark. Your quotation id quite different. This is a bit surprising. Please use sfn for the citation and add the book to the list of sources. Johannes Schade (talk) 11:08, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

Early life and first period of kingship
This section gives a hurried impression, a gallop through the subjects, that ought to be given a more detailed treatment, especially if you compare to the French article which dedicate far more space to this part of his life. As already mentioned earlier, the family background needs to be treated here with more detail than in the lead: his father, his mother, his father's and his mothers families. His grandfather who was the ruling king at the time of his birth. I usually also mention brothers and sisters at that stage but many biographies do without it.

You must find the missing citations marked with.

The article says "as a member of the 1st Greek Infantry." This is not easy to understand the first what? –regiment, –division? It sounds as if there were something missing. Where does the information come from? Perhaps it also needs a citation.

The article says "When his grandfather was assassinated in 1913 ..." This is the first mention of a grandfather. I suppose that is George I of Greece. Make sure he is introduced during the to-be-added family background so that the reader learns who he was and and is given a wikilink to his article so that he can learn more if he likes.

The article says "After a coup deposed Constantine I during World War I ... followed his father in exile.", Surely, we should be given a dates and some background. This is his first exile. We are not even told where he went. That is not the broad coverage demanded for a GA (see WP:GACR). Essential information is missing.

The article says: "When Alexander I died ..., Venizelos was voted out" It sounds as if Alexander's death cause Venizelos loss in an election. That sounds unlikely. What is really the relationship between the two events, if any? The article should probably tell us.

The artcle says "Crown Prince George served as a colonel, and later a major general in the war against Turkey." This is the first time we hear about another war agaist Turkey. Should this war not have been introduced first? I suppose that this war is the Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922). There is quite a bit of work to be done. Johannes Schade (talk) 17:00, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

Failed
Today is the 30th November. There has been no activity on the page since the 25 November. I suppose the nominator has realised that there are too many and too serious issues with the article to fix them within a 7-day GA review. The lead was too short, the section "Early life and first period of kingship" needs to be extended, and the six maintenance tags need to be attended. User:Morningstar1814 has since expanded the lead, which now looks much better. The other issues should be fixed before the article is resubmitted. I therefore fail the GA nomination. The nominator is encouraged to improve the article and to resubmit it later, once the mentioned issues are fixed. Best regards, Johannes Schade (talk) 09:13, 30 November 2020 (UTC)