Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Wolfgang Lüth/1

Wolfgang Lüth

 * • [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Good_article_reassessment/Wolfgang_L%C3%BCth/1&action=watch Watch article reassessment page] • Most recent review
 * Result: kept following changes to the article AustralianRupert (talk) 22:59, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

I am nominating the article for community reassessment due to the concern over sourcing and potentially failing GAC #2b:

The article contains:
 * 7 citations to Karl Alman aka Franz Kurowski (please see linked article)
 * 4 citations to Kurowski proper
 * 10 citations to a self-published source Florian Berger
 * 6 citations to Gordon Williamson (writer) (please see linked article)

Sample content supported by these sources includes:
 * Sources are inconclusive regarding the total amount of Allied shipping sunk. They vary between and . Some sources also mention 17 war-patrols. Lüth aborted two patrols on GS U-43 (1939) prematurely after leaving harbour because of oil leakage.

Please also see Wolfgang Lüth, where the work by Alman used a source for the article is described. K.e.coffman (talk) 18:31, 29 July 2016 (UTC)

Comment by Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 00:38, 30 July 2016 (UTC)
 * These appear to be mainly multiple citations, where the removal of Kurowski and his alias, and Berger would have little effect on the article. Even where they are the only source for a sentence, the removal of the sentence concerned would not affect the overall quality of the article. I have a lot of experience in comparing Williamson with other sources, and have found him to be reliable. I don't support the removal of Williamson as a source. I would add that, for example, facts about Lüth's sinking of vessels with the deck gun of his submarine are cited to Williamson by Professor of History at Murdoch University in Australia, Michael Sturma, in Surface and Destroy: The Submarine Gun War in the Pacific (2011) published by the University Press of Kentucky (p. 8). Reviewers should note that the nominator of this article for GAR has been adding negative information to Williamson's article (see this, this and this, and now points us to it as a means of undermining a source used in this article. I have no issue with people adding reliably cited positive and negative information to articles on historians and history writers, but as we all know, there are always a range of opinions about various history writers, and not all of them are negative. The fact that Williamson is used as a source for facts about Lüth's tactics by a professor of history at a leading Australian university is relevant to Williamson's reliability, but this fact doesn't appear in Williamson's article. I'm sure that there are other examples of academics using Williamson as a source in books published by university presses or other respected publishing houses, this was just the first hit on a simple search. Cheers, Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 02:51, 30 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Sturma quotes Grey Wolf by Williamson among five other sources (two by Clay Blair) in footnote 8 on page 3 of the introduction. This hardly makes Williamson an academic writer. The referenced work in this article is basically a compilation of biographic material on a well-defined group of individuals, which might be considered a tertiary source at best. More importantly, Williamson's figure for Allied tonnage sunk by Lüth is taken from Bodo Herzog's book dating from 1970, which is off by 3225 GRT, and fails to mention a French sub sunk. With the complete list given at the bottom of the article, the whole argument about a range in the sources is irrelevant.
 * From the article, I have the impression that some of the inferior sources (i.e. Alman, Berger, Kurowski, Range, Von Seemen, and also Williamson) are merely used to create the impression that there is a wider, academic discussion of Lüth, rather than a mere entry in a biographical index. The information could have easily be sourced from Busch&Röll or Scherzer, which irritatingly is listed in the bibliography but not used for inline citations. This however, would have made for a rather uninspiring list of citations. Another question is whether English-language sources should have precedence over German ones. As only Hadley, Kurowksi, Vauce, and Williamson are used, Helgason might be an alternative one to go with. ÄDA - DÄP VA (talk) 09:42, 31 July 2016 (UTC)
 * G'day, regarding Kurowski/Allman, I'd suggest replacing altogether if possible, or if not then I suggest beefing up the in-text attribution in order to ensure that it is clear that it is his assertion and that it isn't being presented in Wikipedia's voice. Regarding Williamson, I think we need to be very careful about how this is handled. Most writers will have some criticism levelled at their works, some of it more vehement than others. He is published by Osprey, which would for all intents be considered a reliable source, so I don't think his works should be totally discounted (although I do think we could use other sources to verify where possible). Presenting an "uncritical view" does not represent "unreliable" or "wrong" for all purposes in my opinion (i.e. statistics and general facts are most likely correct, although the full context may not be conveyed), so I would look at other sources to fill in gaps, particularly around more unsavoury aspects, but for general facts I'd say the use of Williamson is most likely okay, particularly if other academics have cited these sources also (although if it could be replaced by better sources, by all means this would be the best solution). For a  U-boat topic, I would also like to see some references to Blair's Hitler's U-boat War. I have copies of both The Hunters and The Hunted somewhere. Will try to dig them out, and if possible, will try to add something if there is consensus to add this in. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 06:03, 1 August 2016 (UTC)
 * G'day, where are we at with this GAR? From what I can tell most of the problematic citations have been replaced, or verified with other references. What is your opinion in this regard? Has enough been done to close this GAR? Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 10:32, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

I believe that most of the issues have been addressed with the help of some excellent editing from AustralianRupert and ÄDA - DÄP. There are two citations remaining to a self-published source by Berger:


 * U-boat Front Clasp (12 October 1944)
 * War Cross for Military Valor (Italy) (1 November 1941)

Since these appear to be minor decorations, if the citations cannot be replaced, I suggest that these be omitted. Would that work? That would resolved any outstanding issues. K.e.coffman (talk) 05:16, 13 August 2016 (UTC)
 * That seems fair enough to me. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 06:43, 13 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Sounds good; I've implemented the change. There are no more outstanding issues. Please feel free to close this discussion. K.e.coffman (talk) 19:00, 13 August 2016 (UTC)