Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Cho Ki-chon


 * The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Article promoted by Ian Rose (talk) via MilHistBot (talk) 06:04, 14 August 2017 (UTC) &laquo; Return to A-Class review list

Cho Ki-chon

 * Nominator(s): 

When Cho Ki-chon – a Soviet propaganda officer of Korean descent – entered his home country with the Red Army during the last days of WWII, he had a mission. The Soviets needed to groom Kim Il-sung for leadership of North Korea, but the man seriously lacked appeal. The Soviets figured out that with the help of Cho, they could kill two birds with one stone: write brilliant propaganda praising Kim as the hero of Koreans but do so in the socialist realist genre. Thus was born Mt. Paektu, an epic poem chronicling the largely made-up guerilla activities of Kim Il-sung to serve as the basis of his cult of personality. A few years later, Kim led Koreans to war again and Cho continued to write propaganda poems with names like "Aircraft Hunters" and "Mungyong Pass". Cho died in a United Nations Force bombing raid. Ironically, his death in "The Forgotten War" was what immortalized his legacy; he died just before Kim Il-sung began his sweeping purges of the intelligentsia in the mid-1950s.

The article is a GA and DYK. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 20:29, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

Comments by Lingzhi

 * "may have spared him his reputation" spared from what negative assessment? Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 09:31, 9 April 2017 (UTC)
 * would you be happy with the wording I added : ? – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 18:20, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
 * What about you? Are you happy with the article after the improvements below (and those done by you; thank you for that)? – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 03:12, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm sorta stepping away from doing any content review at the moment. I hope things go well for you A-class review... sorry... Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 22:40, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

Comments by DarjeelingTea
Conditional Support - This is an absolutely fascinating article by Finnusertop. Having just, this last summer, been promoted to GA status there's not a lot that I can find that needs improvement but I have listed some items below. I've rated this "conditional support" on correction of these items. DarjeelingTea (talk) 03:24, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Alt tags for images are all present, captions are sensible and supported by text, images all have correct licensing
 * No DAB issues or dead external links
 * Earwig shows copyvio unlikely
 * Everything is cited and to RS
 * LEDE complies with WP:LEDE for length
 * "Other poems by hum include" ... is that supposed to be "him"?
 * about the sufferings of Koreans ... I believe "suffering" should be singular
 * Yi Chang-ju of the North Research Institution, ... there should not be a comma after "institution"
 * " According to Gabroussenko," ... while this form is fine for the literature review of a thesis, I don't think in an encyclopedia we can just say "according to [surname]" without giving the given name on the first instance of use
 * By that time, he had much experience of Soviet literature and literature administration. (I think the preposition used here should be "with" instead of "of" - and a word like "substantial" might by stylistically preferable to "much"?)
 * Several times we refer to United Nations bombing raids and, while technically that's correct, I don't see this specific verbiage used often in lieu of naming a specific nationality's air force.
 * Cho died on 31 July 1951 in his office room - couldn't we just say in his office ... or did he also live there?
 * Thank you for the great suggestions, . I've made all changes.


 * Notice that I didn't spell out Gabroussenko's first name where you point out it's missing. I've already introduced her with her full name when I first invoke her in the section #Before emigrating from the Soviet Union: as well as in the first footnote . If you think it would be wise to spell it out once more, I can do that of course. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 04:15, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks for pointing that out, I missed it! That all looks good to me in that case. DarjeelingTea (talk) 06:15, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
 * For the Milhist coords, this review is by a confirmed sock who has been blocked indefinitely. Cheers, Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 12:06, 11 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Ack, seen, unfortunate situation. Question is, do we simply ignore the review (and require three more for promotion), or do we let it stand? From what I can see, the comments seem reasonable, and have been addressed, so I don't think the nominator should be penalised. Thoughts? AustralianRupert (talk) 08:57, 12 June 2017 (UTC)
 * I think Finnusertop has addressed them in good faith, but I just wanted to point it out for those that don't run the script that shows blocked users. It is only a conditional support, so I'd ordinarily want to see a couple of strong supports (or three supports) to get this one over the line. Cheers, Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 09:38, 12 June 2017 (UTC)
 * No worries, thanks for letting us know. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 10:49, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

Comments from AustralianRupert
Support: G'day, nicely done, IMO, although I can honestly say this isn't a topic I know anything about. I have the following suggestions: AustralianRupert (talk) 10:49, 12 June 2017 (UTC) ✅
 * "Tatiana Gabroussenko thinks it is...". Suggest on first mention clarifying who Gabroussenko is. For instance, "Biographer Tatiana Gabroussenko", or "Author Tatiana Gabroussenko..."
 * "literary circles of the time were divided based on divisions" --> "literary circles of the time were based on divisions"
 * grammar: "These influence include..."
 * "heroic guerilla who is well-suited to lead the country" --> "heroic guerilla well-suited to lead the country"
 * "naivity" --> "naivety"
 * "than Kim Il-sung — such as Ch'ŏl-ho, Kkot-pun, and Sŏk-jun — and by extension": the emdashes should be unspaced here, or should be replaced with spaced endashes. As you use spaced endashes earlier, I'd suggest changing to this style here for consistency;
 * you use a short citation system for Gabroussenko 2005, but not for other works such as Myers 2011, Myers 2015, Dae-Sook Suh 1981, or Gobroussenko 2010 (there are a few others, I think, this is not exhaustive). This should probably be consistent;
 * The style I use is short citations whenever I cite multiple locations (i.e. pages) of the same work. If I only cite one page from a book, I will present the long citation straight away without a short citation.
 * No worries, seems fair enough. I think a couple of editors use this style also, although on first glance it appears inconsistent to me. Definitely not a warstopper, though. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 09:37, 15 June 2017 (UTC)
 * not sure about the punctuation here: "[A Study on Long Epic Poetry Titled 『Mt. Baekdu』 – Focusing on Creative Intention –]" --> "[A Study on Long Epic Poetry Titled "Mt. Baekdu" – Focusing on Creative Intention]"?
 * "than Kim Il-sung — such as Ch'ŏl-ho, Kkot-pun, and Sŏk-jun — and by extension": the emdashes should be unspaced here, or should be replaced with spaced endashes. As you use spaced endashes earlier, I'd suggest changing to this style here for consistency;
 * you use a short citation system for Gabroussenko 2005, but not for other works such as Myers 2011, Myers 2015, Dae-Sook Suh 1981, or Gobroussenko 2010 (there are a few others, I think, this is not exhaustive). This should probably be consistent;
 * The style I use is short citations whenever I cite multiple locations (i.e. pages) of the same work. If I only cite one page from a book, I will present the long citation straight away without a short citation.
 * No worries, seems fair enough. I think a couple of editors use this style also, although on first glance it appears inconsistent to me. Definitely not a warstopper, though. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 09:37, 15 June 2017 (UTC)
 * not sure about the punctuation here: "[A Study on Long Epic Poetry Titled 『Mt. Baekdu』 – Focusing on Creative Intention –]" --> "[A Study on Long Epic Poetry Titled "Mt. Baekdu" – Focusing on Creative Intention]"?
 * not sure about the punctuation here: "[A Study on Long Epic Poetry Titled 『Mt. Baekdu』 – Focusing on Creative Intention –]" --> "[A Study on Long Epic Poetry Titled "Mt. Baekdu" – Focusing on Creative Intention]"?
 * the infobox mentions a few things that aren't in the article, which probably should be: the prizes, his marriage/child etc.
 * ✅. Added the marriage and child. The prizes were already there.
 * Thanks, sorry I missed the prizes. Well done. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 09:37, 15 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the suggestions, . I have tried to answer them above to the best of my ability. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 21:55, 14 June 2017 (UTC)
 * This review is probably close to being able to be successfully closed. It probably just needs an image review. Unfortunately, I'm probably not in a position to review these images. would you mind taking a look at the images in this article? Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 10:30, 21 July 2017 (UTC)

Support: Comments: (while the title will be useful, it should not hold up A-class) Some really minor things... That's about it! Maury Markowitz (talk) 19:24, 12 July 2017 (UTC)
 * "there amplified his Russian and Soviet sides.[16] He returned to the Far East and" - suggest putting a paragraph split here.
 * "reluctant to visit places of work.[22] His role in shaping North" - and here
 * "These very works" - drop the "very"
 * "Cho released a novel" - do we know the name of it?
 * The sources I cite for the novel (English language abstracts of Korean journal articles) don't mention it. I'll have to look if some of those actual articles do. I didn't find this information in the English language sources that I use in the article. I'll need to investigate this.
 * "While still at the Pedagogical Institute, Cho released a novel. The novel describes anti-Japanese armed struggle,[3] and is similar" - perhaps "While still at the Pedagogical Institute, Cho released a novel describing the anti-Japanese armed struggle. It is similar..."
 * "Cho released a novel" - do we know the name of it?
 * The sources I cite for the novel (English language abstracts of Korean journal articles) don't mention it. I'll have to look if some of those actual articles do. I didn't find this information in the English language sources that I use in the article. I'll need to investigate this.
 * "While still at the Pedagogical Institute, Cho released a novel. The novel describes anti-Japanese armed struggle,[3] and is similar" - perhaps "While still at the Pedagogical Institute, Cho released a novel describing the anti-Japanese armed struggle. It is similar..."
 * Thank you for your suggestions, . I've implemented the easy fixes. As for the name of the novel Cho wrote in the Soviet Union, I'll have to dig deeper. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 20:05, 14 July 2017 (UTC)

Image review
 * File:Mosaic_Depicting_Kim_Il_Sungs_Homecoming,_Pyongyang,_North_Korea_(2907648510).jpg: typically 2D works like mosaics or murals do not garner a copyright for the photographer. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:24, 22 July 2017 (UTC)
 * ✅ dropped the cc-by-2.0 tag. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 20:52, 29 July 2017 (UTC)


 * The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.