Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Peer review/Soviet partisans

Soviet partisans
This is a rather extensive B-class article, generating quite a lot of controversy (which boils down to the fact that Soviet partisans, as Soviet themselves, were not viewed by liberators by all, and clashed with forces that others did view as liberators). Besides a need for neutral editors to keep an eye on the page and comment from time to time, I believe this is a relativly good article that with some work can go up to a GA. Your comments on how to do so would be appreciated (and a nice change from the common 'good/bad guys bickering on this article talk).--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 23:22, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Kirill Lokshin
Ah, lots of things that should be looked at here: More generally, the article seems to focus primarily on the grand strategic concerns without really going into more concrete details on the day-to-day affairs. There's little or no coverage of how partisan groups were organized, what equipment they had, how they operated, and so forth; if there are sources available (and I'd be surprised if there aren't some), I think this would be a suitable area for expanding the article. Kirill Lokshin 04:57, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
 * The lead needs to be significantly longer; two sentences don't really work for an article this long.
 * The referencing situation is quite a mess; there are two different citation styles (inline external links and footnotes), and a lot of things that should be cited aren't.
 * There's some weasel-wording present, particularly in the "Controversies" section; statements like "some historians believe", "some former Soviet partisans", etc. really need to be more specific.
 * The "Major operations" section may be better off as a table, if you can't convert it to real prose paragraphs.
 * The "See also" section should be eliminated.
 * The "List of famous Soviet partisans" may be better off turned into a floating sidebar of some sort, to avoid breaking up the flow.
 * "Bibliography": is that part of "References" or "Further reading"?
 * The "Controversies" section has a lot of very short, choppy sub-sections; it may be better to combine them into longer blocks of prose.

PocklingtonDan
Cheers - PocklingtonDan (talk) 12:55, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
 * The lead is practically non-existent, it should give a general summary of the scopr of the entire article that is to come
 * There is a woeful lack of cites
 * Needs a copyedit by a native speaker of English
 * "the local population which was antagonized by German brutality." - cite needed
 * "the Communist Party ordered Party members to organize an underground resistance....pre-war plans and candidates for such operations existed.....No formal recruitment procedures existed" - this seems to be self-contradictory.
 * "transferred the working age population to Reich" - I've not heard Reich used as a location, and certainly not Reich as opposed to The Reich.
 * " (e.g. see Khatyn)." -> "such as at Khatyn"
 * "the majority became passive supporters to partisans." - cite needed
 * "began training special groups of future partisans (effectively, special forces units) in the rear and dropping them in the occupied territories" - I'm not really sure such troops would be considered partisans by the normal definition
 * "According to the Himmler's plan" The Himmler?
 * " 3/4 of " -> "three quarters of"
 * "3/4 of the Belarusian population was to be eradicated and the remainder was to be used as a slave labour force" - cite?
 * "By Summer 1942 all the illusions some Belarusians might have had about the Nazi rule, even compared to the brutal Stalinist regime, were lost and the anti-fascist resistance rose dramatically" - cite?
 * "To the end of 1941 only in Minsk area there were at least 50 partisan groups " - > "In the Minsk area alone there were at least 50 partisan groups before 1941"
 * "in the spring of 1943, Soviet government did not support " -> "in the spring of 1943, the Soviet government did not support "
 * " Soviet partisans and AK usually supported each other" -> " Soviet partisans and the AK usually supported each other"
 * I could go on but the whole article is in need of the same things - copyediting by a native English speaker and citations for the many stated facts and opinions that lack cites.