Template:Did you know nominations/Battle of Ban Pa Dong


 * The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as |this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by 97198 (talk) 22:58, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

Battle of Ban Pa Dong

 * ... that the Battle of Ban Pa Dong began when Auto Defense Choc graduates from Operation Momentum ambushed Pathet Lao?
 * ALT1:... that the first casualty at the Battle of Ban Pa Dong was an Air America H-34?
 * Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Amberin Zaman
 * Comment: Shortly after the Battle of Vientiane opened the Laotian Civil War, Vietnamese and Lao communists struck at the CIA-sponsored Operation Momentum at Ban Pa Dong. Though the Hmong guerrillas there made the tactical error of defending Ban Pa Dong as a fixed position, they saved themselves through a last minute withdrawal. If the communists had succeeded in eliminating the guerrilla band at this obscure Laotian village, the war might have sputtered to an end right then, instead of 14 years later.

Created by Georgejdorner (talk). Self nominated at 03:43, 4 February 2015 (UTC).


 * Symbol question.svg New enough. Long enough. Well written and cited for the most part. Reliable sources, although only one--a heavily redacted (Ahern 2006)--is available online. AGF on the rest of the sources. The article does need a couple of inline citations. Also, the very first sentence in the lede is extremely confusing--took me a few re-reads to decipher it--and should be rewritten. (You don't need to pack all the information in the first sentence.) The article is almost entirely written from American and royalist perspectives, I suspect, due to the available sources. But I must say the editor has tried to make it as neutral as possible; I don't think most readers would find it biased. Hybernator (talk) 03:23, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I "unpacked" that lede sentence. Thanks for the kind words concerning NPOV. I keep seeking sources written from the communist POV, but have had no luck so far. As you have noted, the best I can do with information supplied is not "take sides".
 * If you could tell me where the article needs cites, I may be able to fix that. However, I thought I had completely cited this article.Georgejdorner (talk) 16:19, 17 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Please look for a couple of "citation needed" marks in the background section. Thanks. Hybernator (talk) 02:55, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I had already cited the passages you marked, with cites at the end of the paragraph. However, I added additional cites from other sources to replace the "cite needed" markers.Georgejdorner (talk) 03:27, 19 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Symbol voting keep.svg Thanks. Long enough, new enough, well written and cited throughout, neutral tone. GTG. Hybernator (talk) 00:36, 20 February 2015 (UTC)