Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Siege of Mantua (1799)/1

Siege of Mantua (1799)

 * • [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Good_article_reassessment/Siege_of_Mantua_(1799)/1&action=watch Watch article reassessment page] • Most recent review
 * Result: No consensus to delist. AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 15:51, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

GA from 2012. Mainly doing this to get other people's opinions on this but I have two concerns. 1, this article almost entirely relies on one source for the entirety of the article. 2, The article doesn't feel too broad. There's no background section, just a prelude, and the section on the siege is incredibly small. Onegreatjoke (talk) 02:56, 21 July 2023 (UTC)


 * A large chunk of the book Napoleon in Italy: The Sieges of Mantua, 1796–1799 by Phillip R. Cuccia (published in 2014, 2 years after this GA review) seems to be entirely about this siege. The limited GBooks preview sadly does not include any pages from this portion. Curbon7 (talk) 03:17, 21 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I am sure this could be expanded. But I think that despite a decade passing, it is well structured and referenced. FYI, The source I used was a popular history-level article, written by a historian (pl:Andrzej Nieuważny) for a historical addition to a reliable newspaper. I cannot find that exact article online anymore, but I found and  (from the same newspaper, but paywalled - similar date and name, possibly the name and date was changed from print to online archivE?). I am not able to access the original print article if I still have it in my archive (different continent...). Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here  07:56, 21 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Overreliance on one source has also caused broadness issues: several Google scholar results mention songs referencing the siege, which are not mentioned in the article. It is also very short and looks like it may not meet broadness about the siege itself without consulting more in-depth sources like Cuccia's book. The article is also not understandable to an audience that isn't already familiar with the Napoleonic wars and lacks information on how the siege fits into broader military developments. (t &#183; c)  buidhe  05:56, 29 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Would you consider those criticisms to fall under "major aspects" or "comprehensiveness"? While comprehensiveness is needed for an FA, this isn't one: we shouldn't delist on breadth grounds unless we feel that major aspects of the subject have been omitted. Comprehensibility is another matter, but I think the GA standards only assess whether the prose itself is comprehensible as English (which I think it is), not whether the article gives enough contextual information for its information to be fully understood. I suppose what I'm saying is that there's a gulf between "this article could be better" and "this article should be delisted", and my sense is that we're currently in that gulf rather than over it. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 18:38, 30 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Right. From my perspective (I wrote this well over a decade ago), this "looks" to short for modern GA standards, but is it too short to be kept? If I had access to good sources, I'd expand it; sadly, I don't have the time to work on this right this moment. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 00:48, 31 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Major aspects. Especially, the absence of proper context means that it is difficult for someone to understand if they do not know much about the Napoleonic wars. (GAC#1a) (t &#183; c)  buidhe  01:46, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Context is there: "In April 1799, the Austrians placed a military blockade around Mantua as part of the War of the Second Coalition with the intent of withering the French by attrition. " Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 02:48, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
 * I don't know if its fair to assume the reader knows that "Austrians"=Habsburg monarchy and what the war of the second coalition was about. Further, this is in the lead but not the body (MOS:LEAD, GAC#1b) and does not have a source (2b). If the book covers the siege extensively it would be possible to expand it 5-10x, which means there are likely major aspects that none of us know about because we can't access Cuccia's book. (t &#183; c)  buidhe  03:52, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
 * I'll add it to the body. Problem solved. Expansion with Cuccia's book is a good idea for getting this to FA. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 07:59, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
 * I don't agree, but a more urgent issue is that the source you added doesn't mention the siege of Mantua at all (either the first or second siege). How do I verify that there is no original research in how the two sources were combined in the new "background" section? It doesn't help that you haven't specified which content is supported by which source. (t &#183; c)  buidhe  01:59, 4 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Which fact are you concerned about? That section provides a generic, few sentence long overview of the War of the Second Coalition, supported by the sources (partially based on the referenced part of the lead of War of the Second Coalition, and the rest on the old version of this article, which I AGF myself to have properly based back then on sourced cited). If you see any REDFLAG claims, I can look for more sources. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 23:59, 4 August 2023 (UTC)