Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Otto Kittel/1

Otto Kittel

 * • [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Good_article_reassessment/Otto_Kittel/1&action=watch Watch article reassessment page] • Most recent review
 * Result: Article has been delisted. While there was a suggestion that alternate sources be found for the Kurowski ones, the fact remains that it was been three weeks and no updates have been made to the article, which has an "unreliable sources" template on it. The "delist" arguments are cogent and sufficient to justify delisting; should alternative sources be found for the Kurowski half, the article can be submitted anew at GAN. BlueMoonset (talk) 21:08, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

Stumbled upon Otto Kittel which appears to be a GA from 2010. Good articles are supposed to be "well written" and using "reliable sources". The majority of the article is sourced by Franz Kurowski, apparently a rather hagiographic, unreliable author about Germany in WW2. Furthermore, passages such as "Several Russian women and children saw the crash from two houses nearby and came running out. No men were in sight. When Kittel got to the forest he found he had left his emergency rations behind, having only chocolate bar with him," or "Risking himself for a single victory was not Kittel's way," or "During his training he was considered a good comrade on account of his unshakeable calm, presence of mind and sense of duty. Owing to his attributes, his superior officers treated him with respect," strike me as rather un-encyclopedic and either unsourced or – if the entire paragraph is sourced by the inline citation at its end – we are back to square one with this information sourced by Kurowski alone. There's a bunch of minor things like not capitalizing staffel but capitalizing it later, and whether it's really necessary to use the German word for squadron (though I don't know what the consensus is for that). I'm not an expert and judging by the article talk page, there seem to have been issues between contributing editors in the past, hence the request for community input. --CCCVCCCC (talk) 05:36, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

Just wanted to highlight Keith-264's very quick contributions, already the article is starting to read much better. Although I dare say the reliance on that single source author an issue, as he comprises a half of the inline citations. Especially since most of the other references seem to be used to source rather dry statistics, e.g. dates, numbers, promotions, while for the "meaty" prose it's all Kurowski. --CCCVCCCC (talk) 16:18, 18 July 2016 (UTC)


 * Delist: As a contributor to the Franz Kurowski article, I recommend delisting this article. The Kurowski source is non-encyclopedic and is not suitable to serve as a basis for a GA, or any article. I recommend limiting its use as much as possible. The acceptable use of this source may be for militaria details (I.e. details of uniforms, medals, vehicles, etc); the RS commenting on Kurowski's body of work list it to be passable for those, but not much else. K.e.coffman (talk) 15:59, 19 July 2016 (UTC)


 * Delist: At first I was more worried about the flowery prose which was fixed in part, but after reading up more on the author in question I am for delisting, not a RS for a GA. Also I absolutely second what K.e.coffman said about the source in general, if there are other articles relying solely (or in large part) on it then they deserve attention as well. --CCCVCCCC (talk) 06:45, 24 July 2016 (UTC)


 * Best to see if it can be salvaged, first, IMO. Can the info be sourced to a higher quality source than Kurowski?--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 15:48, 24 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Kurowski wrote over 400 books, including on such obscure subjects as Kittel. It's unlikely that there would be an RS covering Kittel's career in such level of detail. The only option (IMO) is to prune the article, which would not leave enough content for it to sustain a GA status. K.e.coffman (talk) 18:48, 24 July 2016 (UTC)
 * I've followed your advice and nominated Good article reassessment/Wolfgang Lüth/1 for community reassessment. Also, I think this discussion can be closed as "Delist" as it's been over a week since the last comment. I don't see a particular timeframe for keeping a GAR open at Good article reassessment; but in addition to comments here, several editors edited the article following the nomination, and no objects to delisting have been raised. It seems reasonable to assume that the commenting period has been sufficient.
 * Edit: found this in instructions for "Guidelines for community reassessment discussion": "When a community reassessment has run its course, it can be closed by any uninvolved registered user. (Significant contributors to the article are "involved", as are reassessment nominators)". K.e.coffman (talk) 19:05, 29 July 2016 (UTC)