Wikipedia:Featured article review/United States Marine Corps/archive1


 * The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was removed by Dana boomer 14:53, 24 August 2011.

Review commentary

 * Notified: Top five editors by edit count: Mmx1, Looper5920, Fnlayson, ERcheck, and Bahamut0013. Projects:WikiProject United States and WikiProject Military history. 

Article was promoted in 2006 and is not up to 2011 standards. Talk page notice was given over 6 months ago.
 * 1a: There are short and choppy paragraphs and bulleted lists that should be in prose. Some areas have bolded text for no apparent reason.
 * 1b: The article does not offer outside criticism or opinions.
 * 1c: The majority of the article is sourced to the US Military (third party sources are needed) and some sources that aren't meeting the requisite "high-quality and reliable." A few examples are: http://www.globalsecurity.org, http://about.com and http://www.answers.com . These are only examples; not a comprehensive list. There are many areas that lack citations. There are several dead links.
 * 2c: Uniformity of citations are very chaotic; missing retrieved dates, publishers and page numbers... too many to list. There is no bibliography.
 * 3: There are several files that need fixing and updating:
 * File:Battle of Nassau.jpg, File:Storming of Chapultepec.jpg, File:Scott Belleau Wood.jpg and File:Teufel Hunden US Marines recruiting poster.jpg should all be licensed as PD-art.
 * File:USMC War Memorial Night.jpg has incorrect author attribution according to.
 * Upon further thought this photo has been released to public domain but it's a photo of a 3D sculpture meaning that the sculpture itself may be under copyright. Ask at commons for help. Brad (talk) 00:11, 23 July 2011 (UTC)


 * File:USMC uniforms.jpg please seek out and correct the locations of the files that were used to create this image.
 * File:Designated Marksman Rifle 2.jpg needs a source to make it clear that it is truly a USMC photo. There is no source currently listed.
 * I did not check every file of rank insignias or streamers.
 * MOS: The following should be adhered to: MOS:LINK, MOS:Images, WP:ALT. Brad (talk) 00:52, 22 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Quick comment (I've no strong interest in the USMC, but its FA stauts is rather iconic, and it would de shame to lose it): globalsecurity.org certainly isn't the best source, but I wouldn't be so quick to declare it as unreliable as answers.com. I might comment more here as things progress. I'll be happy to copy edit once the other issues are close to being addressed. HJ Mitchell  &#124;  Penny for your thoughts?   01:39, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
 * "high-quality" is a key word of "high-quality and reliable". GS might meet reliable but it lacks as a high-quality source from my past experience with that site. Brad (talk) 02:05, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
 * GS is something of a "cut-and-paste" collection. And with their conversion to a pay-model site you can't always verify information cited from there.Intothatdarkness (talk) 17:24, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Yeah; I've caught several of their articles plagiarizing text from the US Military because they didn't make notice of using PD text. But then they have the nerve to slap their own copyright on the article. Their attempts to promote their own reliability and importance are just as humorous. Their main page has a banner shouting Reliable Security Information. Brad (talk) 00:11, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Just as a quick technicality (responding to Intothatdarkness) - It doesn't matter that a source is behind a paywall. The only requirement for verifiability is that anyone can verify a source, not that it be easy to verify. I have seen FA writers use books (and have used books myself) that are only held by a handful of libraries worldwide - not every editor would be able to verify the information in these books, but some can, and so it passes the criteria. Same for sources behind a paywall - inconvenient, but not against the verifiability policy. Dana boomer (talk) 01:22, 24 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Comment - given the 1b, 1c, and use of globalsecurity.org, my opinion would be a move to FACR would be the best course. Buckshot06 (talk) 01:27, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Amusing observation: While editors add and remove tags from the article this little piece of vandalism has gone uncorrected for almost 48 hours now. Brad (talk) 03:27, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

FARC commentary

 * Concerns raised in the FAR section include prose, comprehensiveness, sourcing and images. Nikkimaria (talk) 16:02, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Delist Unfortunately little if any effort has been done to address the issues. Brad (talk) 18:43, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Delist This article is no longer of FA standard, unfortunately. Nick-D (talk) 08:28, 24 August 2011 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.