Talk:SMS Fürst Bismarck/GA1

GA Review
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review initiated. --Auntieruth55 (talk) 17:04, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
 * GA review (see here for criteria)

This is a good start on an informative article about the Prince Bismarck, but it still has some shortcomings with respect to the good article criteria.
 * 1) It is reasonably well written.
 * a (prose): b (MoS):
 * It is reasonably well written, clear and concise, I like that you included some comparisons to other, later ships...this helps put the size, armor, and armament of this ship into context.  You refer to some problems with the ship, however, this is but one sentence.  Were there problems with the ship's handling?  I suspect so, because it was decommed so quickly in 1914.
 * The main handling problem with the ship was it rolled badly (although this may have only been a problem in the North Sea or in the East Asia station; for example, the Nassau-class battleships rolled badly because their roll period happened to coincide with the average North Sea swell. The sources I've got aren't clear on what caused the rolling issue, or whether there were any steps taken to correct it; i.e., in the case of the Nassaus, bilge keels were added).
 * They're also not clear as to why the ship was withdrawn so quickly, while all of the other German armored cruisers saw service, largely in the Baltic, until 1917 or so, when the surviving ships were also withdrawn. I would assume it's because the ship just couldn't hope to compete with more modern British ships (in comparison, Fürst Bismarck's battleship contemporaries, the Brandenburg and Kaiser Friedrich III classes, were also withdrawn from active service by 1915). There was also the the need to free up crews for more valuable ships (a number of ships were commissioned with crews from other vessels; for example, when SMS Von der Tann was commissioned, she was manned by the crew of the dreadnought SMS Rheinland). The problem is, none of the sources say any of this; while I'm probably not far off from why the ship was withdrawn so quickly, since I can't source it, I'd rather not add any of it to the article. Parsecboy (talk) 01:49, 7 June 2009 (UTC)


 * 1) It is factually accurate and verifiable.
 * a (references): b (citations to reliable sources):  c (OR):
 * it is dryly factual and the data are overwhelming, and fairly uninteresting. While reliable in reporting the details of the ship's construction, dimensions and use, your sources are inadequate to place this ship in its broader context. No apparent original research.
 * That's the problem with German ships of this era; there just isn't much on them in English (and I don't speak very much German yet). Ships that didn't see much combat are especially bad in this regard. Really, the only ships that do have a decent amount of information are the battlecruisers (they're the only big ships that had much of a career outside of Jutland). Parsecboy (talk) 01:57, 7 June 2009 (UTC)


 * 1) It is broad in its coverage.
 * a (major aspects): b (focused):
 * Your article lacks context. You refer to some controversy in its approval in the Reichstag, but what was that? This ship's construction was actually a fairly contentious process. What was the controversy here?  This ship was built in the context also of a European arms race, particularly intense between Germany and Britain; despite the construction of this ship, Wilhelm was embarrassed by his navy.  In 1888 there was a considerable flap over the "poor showing" of the German navy at Victoria's celebration.  Is there a relationship between this, Wilhelm's distress at the state of the German navy, and the controversy around the construction of this ship? What do historians say about this?  What do naval historians say about the ship? Here your sources are not sufficient to cover the this material in section 3 it is, in fact, overly focused on the ship only.  When is a ship not just a ship?--when it means something in the larger cultural context.  Also, it was scrapped in the context of a larger German and Allied powers' policy decision.
 * Again, this is the same issue I highlighted above; I can only write what other authors have already written. Information is severely limited for the majority of the ships of the German Kaiserliche Marine; Google books turns up a paltry 6 hits, of which only 3 refer to this ship. Parsecboy (talk) 02:06, 7 June 2009 (UTC)


 * 1) It follows the neutral point of view policy.
 * Fair representation without bias:
 * although it has a neutral point of view, it lacks context. It is in fact so neutral that the controversial issues of this ship's construction, use, and decommissioning has been completely avoided.  see my comments under criterion #3.
 * 1) It is stable.
 * No edit wars etc.:
 * it's a recent redo of a stub, is this correct?
 * 1) It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.
 * a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
 * a few pictures are good. captions?  I'd have appreciated knowing where that picture was taken that you have at the head of the story (canal from Kiel?)  If you decide to expand the article to include the suggestions I've made, you'll end up with a few more pictures, probably.
 * 1) Overall:
 * Pass/Fail:
 * Good luck improving the article --Auntieruth55 (talk) 17:35, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Nice job. Thanks for adding the paragraph on the looming arms race. I made a few copy edits thingies, and added a phrase about the Admiral. The article is added to the pages, I think (at least I hope I did it right. :)  )  Nice job, thanks for your effort!--Auntieruth55 (talk) 16:41, 14 June 2009 (UTC)