Talk:Reichsoberhandelsgericht/GA1

GA Review
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Reviewer: Kusma (talk · contribs) 16:48, 19 May 2023 (UTC)

Will take this one, expect comments within the next few days. —Kusma (talk) 16:48, 19 May 2023 (UTC)

Section by section prose and content review
A nice article about an interesting court. I do have a few comments (some of them go beyond the GA criteria at WP:WIAGA; you are not obliged to implement all of my suggestions). First pass done, will look for prose issues on next pass. (Some more commas might be helpful!) —Kusma (talk) 22:33, 22 May 2023 (UTC) I'll wait for your responses and then have another look. —Kusma (talk) 21:48, 26 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank you very much for your time and effort, I much appreciate it. If I get something wrong, please forgive me - this is my first GA-nomination.
 * Welcome to GA then! Don't worry about getting things wrong; GA is most of the time a nice collaborative process that not only checks criteria but can also improve the article quite a bit.
 * Title: I would not italicise. MOS:FOREIGNITALIC tells us "A proper name is usually not italicized". The question of italics or not is not always clear, but Bundestag and German Bundesrat and Reichsgericht do not use italics. I would drop quite a few (inside, this can be done with no).
 * I take your point regarding the italics in the title and dropped it.
 * Considering your comment regarding italics in general, I proceeded and dropped all italics for "Reichsoberhandelsgericht", "Bundesoberhandelsgericht", "Bundesgerichtshof" and "Reichsgericht", but kept the rest.
 * Lead: The use of abbr seems a bit redundant, as you have just defined the terms anyway.
 * I thought about this for quite a while during my writing of the article. You are, of course, correct regarding the redundancy. But it seems to me that old abbreviations of foreign language terms can be a source for confusion, therefore I wanted to leave no room for error.
 * Table of contents: very detailed, but perhaps you could lose some of the "of the court" to simplify ("History of the court"->"History", "Judges of the court"->"Judges" etc.) Also some sections could be merged (optional)
 * Structuring text quite a bit is my writing habit, so I am glad that this is alright for GA. I dropped the superfluous terms, which are (indeed) unhelpful.
 * "Historical background" could be just called "Background" and the subsequent "Initiatives for the establishment of a federal supreme court" section could be merged into this. Was there any connection to the previous supreme courts? (Reichskammergericht / Reichshofrat)?
 * I take your point on background and acted accordingly.
 * Again, a valid point regarding the merger of the sections. I did as recommended.
 * The Reichsoberhandelsgericht had (afaik) no connection with the Reichskammergericht or the Reichshofrat because both were courts of the HRR, while the Reichsoberhandelsgericht was a court more influenced by Prussian thinking. I added "imperial" to the courts of the HRR to make this connection a bit clearer.
 * I asked because the German Wikipedia article, de:Reichsoberhandelsgericht, states that "Das Gericht nahm seine Tätigkeit am 5. August 1870 auf und sah sich fortan in der Tradition des Reichskammergerichts." and I was wondering whether this was true. From what I can see in places like there isn't actually strong evidence for such a connection even in spirit.
 * I concur and have thus not added a sentence like the one found in the German Wikipedia.
 * When was the Allgemeines Deutsches Handelsgesetzbuch introduced?
 * 1861. I added this detail (it is covered by the Fleckner citation provided).
 * Give a short (one or two word) introduction to what the Deutscher Juristentag is.
 * I tried my best with "a deliberative congress of German lawyers".
 * Link promissory note?
 * Done.
 * Legislative process: These initiatives bore fruit in 1869: this now sounds like the Deutscher Juristentag was the main driver for the establishment of this court (it is the only initiative we have heard of); perhaps drop this sentence if that isn't what you intend to say.
 * Nice catch. It was indeed just a figure of speech to get to the next paragraph. I dropped the sentence altogether.
 * Not a fan of the inline links to the German Wikisource, which are likely to be confusing to readers unfamiliar with German. (The collection in the External links section is fine).
 * Here I disagree: The linked laws etc. are very hard to find and I would guess that a reader who shows enough perseverance to click on the link will either be a subject-matter expert or a person with enough interest on the specific point that they can parse the German text into DeepL/Google translate. Dropping the link would deprive the interested reader of this possibility. Therefore I would very much like to keep it.
 * If you ever take this article to FAC, this probably won't fly (perhaps people will force you to do footnotes or something), but there isn't any rule against it at GA level.
 * Then I will just leave it as it is and if I would ever try to bring this article to FAC I will give this issue more thought beforehand.
 * Establishment of the court: do we know why the Georgenhalle was chosen?
 * I researched this for a while, but alas unsuccessfully. It is indeed a curious choice as the location seems quite unsuited.
 * Life of the court / succession of the court: could be combined into a single section and/or renamed "German Empire" or something. Courts don't really have a "life", do they? Some of the content here is repeated in the "Jurisdiction" section; consider whether that is necessary.
 * Life of the court is a phrase I have heard before and it seems (at least to me) quite suited here. If you do not mind, I would leave these aspects as they are (including the repetition in the jurisdiction part as readers often only jump to the section they are interested in).
 * Historical assessment of the court: drop "of the court".
 * Valid point. Done.
 * In Andreas M. Fleckner [de]'s assessment (a) introduce him so we know why we should listen to him (b) you can use the lt parameter of to move the possessive apostrophe before the [de].
 * Again, a valid point: I introduced Fleckner and Ogorek as legal scholars.
 * Collection of decisions: who is A. Stegemann?
 * He was a lawyer who published noteworthy judgments (corrected judgements in the article ...) of the court. I do not know more and thus only added "a lawyer".
 * Judges: is the numbering here used by reliable sources? If not I would suggest to drop it.
 * The numbering is indeed used by Lobe, 1929
 * Notes: Instead of the italics with superscript, better to use in-text attribution with.
 * I hope I got the gist of your comment and acted accordingly.
 * Thanks a lot for this first pass and I hope you are satisfied by my responses. Your input is really valuable and insightful. WatkynBassett (talk) 20:11, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Good responses so far!
 * There are many duplicate and triplicate and quadruplicate etc. links (compare MOS:DL). German Empire and North German Confederation and Alsace–Lorraine and Leipzig are examples. You can find these using User:Evad37/duplinks-alt.js or similar tools. Not all duplicate links are bad, but this is a bit excessive.
 * I did not know of this tool! I installed it and used it to find the overlinking. I hope the current state of wlinking is acceptable.
 * Sentences at the start of "Legislative process" are a bit long and mention Saxony more often than necessary.
 * I agree and went on to reduce sentence length and instances of "Saxony".
 * "During the parliamentary deliberations Johannes von Miquel notably argued with a view to a possible German unification that " break this up a bit, at least by adding some commas
 * I used en-dashes - hope this is fine.
 * Establishment: "On this day, the court constituted itself in Leipzig." This reads as if it refers to June, not August.
 * Nice catch! Fixed it.
 * "On the day of that law's entry into force" reads a bit awkward. Perhaps it would be better to rewrite the previous sentence in active voice ("an ordinance dated June decreed its entry into force on 5 August. On that day, the court ...")
 * I took your advice.
 * "Contrary to original plans Otto von Bismarck" needs a comma
 * I concur.
 * Life of the court: try to avoid having so many short paragraphs
 * I integrated some paragraphs, now we have four paragraphs here
 * " Alsace–Lorraine was now part of the German Empire. This started the process" I understand why the incorporation of Alsace-Lorraine eventually led to an expansion of the court's authority, but "This" isn't the best way to connect these thoughts.
 * Very valid point. I edited it to "This territorial gain".
 * Historical assessment: "Due to the expansion of its subject-matter jurisdiction many" wants a comma.
 * I agree.
 * Overall prose assessment: try to do a bit more copyediting (simplify sentence structures, add commas).
 * I did one more ce read-trough. I hope the text gained readibility.
 * Thanks again for your valuable input and time! I hope I put your input to good use! WatkynBassett (talk) 10:31, 28 May 2023 (UTC)
 * I think it can still be polished some more, mostly by copyediting to simplify sentences, but it is nearly time to pass this. Something went wrong with some citations, though: no. 1 points to "Fleckner 2009" and no. 13 to "Müßig 2023", and neither exist. (You can find such problems easily using User:Trappist the monk/HarvErrors.js). —Kusma (talk) 19:26, 28 May 2023 (UTC)
 * I did a further read-through, but I must admit that I found only minor points to fix by myself.
 * Thank you very much for pointing me to HarvErrors. This is a indeed valuable js-script. I fixed all Sfn-errors it found.
 * Thanks again for your comments WatkynBassett (talk) 20:30, 28 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Passing, nice work! —Kusma (talk) 20:40, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

General comments and GA criteria checkbox
More soon! —Kusma (talk) 22:37, 22 May 2023 (UTC) Source comments: Spotchecks of this revision: Spotchecks indicate proper use of sources (but watch out for close paraphrasing and try to use your own words more). Will answer your comments above and go through them tomorrow-ish, apologies for reviewing so slowly. —Kusma (talk) 22:20, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
 * References are nicely formatted.
 * Neutral and stable.
 * Images are old and probably PD (some could have better copyright tags to explain why they are PD in Germany and the US).
 * Fleckner has an English version here, check whether you could cite that?
 * How did I miss this? I acted accordingly.
 * WP:SCHOLARSHIP tells us to be a bit wary of Reynolds. (The thesis seems not to have been cited in the literature). In general I would expect a McGill thesis to be fairly decent, but you perhaps rely on it a bit much. Winkler isn't very widely cited either. (According to Google Scholar, not the best citation database known to mankind).
 * After working with the sources quite a bit, Reynolds qualitatively seems to be one of the strongest sources, but WP:SCHOLARSHIP can (of course) not qualitatively judge individual sources (:-)). I thus concur and added a few more citations to Fischer and Müßig. Winkler is, in my opinion, quite widely cited (for example in Fischer and in Müßig).
 * Table seems generally fine, except for Lobe's 1 July 1870 that means these people were judges before the court was opened in August (Lobe agrees with this opening date, see p. 4)
 * I spotted this myself, but see no possibility of rectifying the situation as Lobe really does state 1 July 1870 for all of them.
 * 39: checks out
 * 46: checks out
 * 27: Reynolds p. 164 has "On 30 September 1879 the Reichsoberhandelsgericht ended its tenure as the supreme court for commerce and trade of the German Reich" while you have "the Reichsoberhandelsgericht had to end its tenure as the supreme court of the German empire on 30 September 1879." This is a bit too closely paraphrased and should be fixed.
 * You clearly have a point there. I reformulated it to "had to conclude its position as the German supreme court on 30 September 1879."
 * 1d: fine
 * 23: ok
 * 49: hmm, I can't see anything about the "legal preparations" in pp. 34–35.
 * I know that this statement is true, but it is indeed not covered by the citation and I can only find indirect proof (e.g. Reynolds p 144). Therefore, I dropped it.
 * 15: checks out. BTW footnote 66 on that page has a little bit about why Leipzig was chosen.
 * I will try a bit more variation. Thanks for checking!
 * Broadness: All major aspects covered in the major relevant literature are discussed here; while this isn't enough for "comprehensive" (there could be more about notable cases and precedents), that isn't asked for by the GA criteria.
 * This is good criticism. If I (in a year or so) would endeavor to bring this article to FAC, I will study the Kronke source in detail and build it into a section on the case law of the court. All other sources are in my opinion weak and not as strong on this point.
 * No excessive detail.
 * Just a quick note: Your review is exceptionally fast (and good). Please take your time and do now worry. I will probably only get to work on your comments on the upcoming weekend myself. WatkynBassett (talk) 05:27, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
 * You didn't have to wait long for the start of the review, but I do usually try to be faster. In any case, I still need to look at some prose and presentation points, but have added a few answers above. —Kusma (talk) 21:56, 25 May 2023 (UTC)
 * You are fast enough for me! Thanks a ton for the fruitful collaboration. I hope I answered all of your queries up to this point! WatkynBassett (talk) 21:38, 26 May 2023 (UTC)