Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Peer review/Ernst Lindemann

Ernst Lindemann
I have been working on this article on and off over the past few weeks and months. With the exception of the period between WWI and WWII (especially the Spanish Civil War) I feel that it covers all major aspects of his life. Please let me know how to improve the article further. Thanks in advance to those that take the time to read and comment. MisterBee1966 (talk) 12:54, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Nick-D
This is looking really good. My suggestions for further improvements are:
 * I don't think that it's necessary to underline 'Ernst'
 * German naming conventions on birth certificates, passports or ID cards indicate the fore name by means of underlining see German name. MisterBee1966 (talk) 11:29, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for that, however this convention isn't used in English-language works on German people so it's a bit confusing here. Nick-D (talk) 07:53, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
 * It would be interesting to know which cruiser Lindemann's uncle commanded (not that it's important to the article)
 * let me check if I can find this out, but I have my doubts MisterBee1966 (talk) 11:29, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
 * What types of ships Lothringen and Bayern were should be identified
 * done MisterBee1966 (talk) 12:18, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
 * What was the 'Schutzkompanie Dahlem of the Schutz-Regiment "Groß-Berlin"' - 'Berlin' is the only English word here
 * What's a 'board command'? (I think that 'major command' would be appropriate)
 * what I mean is a command of a ship
 * The para which begins 'Bismarck left the Kieler Förde' uses the word 'Bismarck' one or more times each sentence, so is rather repetitive - you could break this up by using 'the ship' or equivalent.
 * ' Lindemann openly disagreed with Hitler' - the way this is written it implies that he directly contradicted Hitler during the lunch - is this correct? (if not, it might be better to say 'Lindemann disagreed with Hitler during private discussions' or whatever the source says).
 * Yes it is correct! Lindemann contradicted Hitler at lunch with all the other officers present. MisterBee1966 (talk) 11:29, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
 * '180 hectometres' - a 'hectometre' is a rather unusual measure to use - I'd suggest first converting this to metres.
 * German range finders used hectometers. I tweaked the conversion template to report both metric and yard conversion. MisterBee1966 (talk) 11:29, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
 * '(at the time the German's were referring to Prince of Wales as a King George V class)' - what's meant by this? She was a KGV class ship.
 * The German's didn't know exactly what ship they were facing. MisterBee1966 (talk) 11:29, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
 * There shouldn't be a possessive apostrophe in 'German's' Nick-D (talk) 10:29, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
 * done MisterBee1966 (talk) 12:21, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your feedback. Much appreciated! MisterBee1966 (talk) 11:29, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Dank

 * My BritEng is weak but I'd like to offer some comments on the lead; hope this helps.
 * Agreed with the comment above about the underline; it doesn't work in English. Just write "Otto Ernst Lindemann", since the reader can see from the page title that he's generally known as Ernst.
 * "eight month-long": "eight-month-long" or "eight-month"
 * Kaiserliche Marine is not uncommon, but when I checked sources and Google hits last year, I found the English term was more common, so for this term, my recommendation is that you use the English term in the lead, then give the German term in parentheses somewhere after the lead. I found most English sources preferred the word Kriegsmarine to "postwar navy" and other attempted translations, and you should add the translation of your choice in parentheses. Otherwise, most of the German words you're using aren't common in English sources, and English-language style guides consistently recommend against inserting foreign words that aren't typically put to use in English sources.  On Wikipedia, this generally winds up being decided as a matter of policy (see the last paragraph in WP:UE), as well as guidelines (such as MOS:FOREIGN). You can link to articles that give the German term if you like, or link to (and expand) our Glossary of German military terms. Btw, my great-grandfather was German, I read German (with difficulty), and I hope I'm not speaking out of anti-German bias.  Readers stumble on words they don't know, including technical jargon and foreign words.  OTOH, it's perfectly all right to give German terms when not many English sources mention the term (in English or German), and when English sources tend to rely on the German terms.
 * I don't consider your comments anti-German in any way. I am more or less faced with the same feedback on most of the articles and I have to admit that I still haven't found a universal solution to my dilemma with this issue. First, most of my books are of German origin so my references tend to use the German terms, abbreviations, etc (and the Germans sources themselves are not always consistent either). I more or less have to judge on a case by case basis, is the there an equivalent term in English, which clearly denotes what is meant by the German term. Sometimes a linguistically correct translation is available which doesn't match semantically, if you know what I mean. Sometimes I don't feel comfortable with some of the translations I find in English literature. I do want to give the reader the chance to potentially search for further information if she or he is interested in a specific element of the article. To enable this, I strongly believe that the greatest common denominator is its true native term. And, which happens to be my individual problem here, I may not know how to best translate a specific term due to my lack of English background. That's why I put the article up for peer review; I expect that the experts here help me with the translations. I hope that this is not pushing the envelope. MisterBee1966 (talk) 09:52, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Reviewers tend to perform two contradictory jobs on Wikipedia: a copy editor working on behalf of the writer, and supporter/opposer (where the loyalty is more or less to the reader, to Wikipedia, and to the wikiproject ... in fact, reviewers who are seen as acting out of loyalty to the writer are sometimes seen as poor reviewers.) With BritEng articles, I've got the luxury of wearing just the first hat, since my BritEng isn't good enough to allow me to give a thumbs up or thumbs down just on prose issues, usually.  So all I'll say is: style guides have more or less settled on an answer to this problem that's different from yours, and I hope that helps.  When you're concerned that the translation doesn't catch the nuance of the word, you've got several options: you can add a footnote, you can link to a fuller discussion of the word (and edit the linked article to make it more accurate), or you can give a more precise definition in the text, if that's not too much of a digression.
 * A big part of the problem on this issue is that most copy editors consider academics and scholars to be their worst clients, for many reasons, and many of the sources for Wikipedia are academic ... so not only are you reading bad writing in your sources, you're seeing a lot of those bad habits in other Wikipedia articles. I really need to condense what I've read on the subject into an essay. - Dank (push to talk) 15:07, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * "in various staff as well as naval gunnery training positions.": "staff" isn't close enough to the word it's modifying, "positions", so the sentence is a little difficult to parse. (It is, I believe, more of a German than an English construction.)  I'd go with: "in various naval gunnery training and staff positions", which puts "training" reasonably close to "positions".
 * "the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross (Ritterkreuz des Eisernes Kreuzes) which was presented ...": A comma is needed before "which", since the clause doesn't define which cross was presented, that is, the clause is "non-restrictive". I'd also lose "(Ritterkreuz des Eisernes Kreuzes)" per my comments above. - Dank (push to talk) 22:37, 17 February 2011 (UTC)