Talk:Army of the Danube/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Ealdgyth - Talk 18:42, 4 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'll be reviewing this article shortly. Ealdgyth - Talk 18:42, 4 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

GA review (see here for criteria)

It is reasonably well written.
a (prose): b (MoS):
Some awkward phrasings and the lead needs to conform to WP:LEDE
It is factually accurate and verifiable.
a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):
It is broad in its coverage.
a (major aspects): b (focused):
I'd expect a bit more on the actual organization and composition of the army in the body of the article, not just in an infobox.
It follows the neutral point of view policy.
Fair representation without bias:
It is stable.
No edit wars, etc.:
It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.
a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
Overall:
Pass/Fail:

Specific concerns

Lead:
- "The Army of the Danube (Armée du Danube) (2 March–24 June 1799)..." just reads weird to me, with the dates of existence formatted as we'd normally do in a biography article. Is this a MilHist MOS thing? Or can we expand it to something like "The Army of the Danube (Armée du Danube) was in existence from 2 March to 24 June 1799 and ..."? well, an army is like a person. I've tried to clarify this.
- And then you confuse me because the next sentence is "It was formed on 2 November 1799 by the French Directory by the simple expedient..." which means that the dates in ()'s aren't dates of existence? Then what ARE they? see if this works better.
- Lead does not seem to adequately summarize the article. NO mentions of the battles that the army fought in, which take up more than half the article. I would at least expect some mention of the battles, even if not a lot of mention. No mention of what happened to it that caused it to no longer exist in the lead either. fixed, I hope.
- Conversely, there is information in the lead that is not in the body of the article. Nothing in the lead (specifically the information on the formation) should be only in the lead, so you should duplicate the bits about how the army was formed in the body, I'd suggest renaming the "Purpose" section to "Formation and purpose" and adding a bit more detail there. How many soldiers were in it? How were they organized? Five units: Advanced guard with a detachable flank, reserve, divisions 1-3. Staff. Who were the subordinate officers? etc. Subordinates would be an unnecessary list of non-notables.
Background -
- Who were the signatories of the Treaty of Campo Formio? There were about 20, but the important ones were France and Austria. clarified.
- "The French Directory, furthermore, was convinced that the Austrians were conniving to start another war; the weaker the French Republic seemed, the more the Austrians, the Neopolitans, the Russians and the English were discussing this possibility." reads awkwardly in the last phrase, suggest "The French Directory, furthermore, was convinced that the Austrians were conniving to start another war; the weaker the French Republic seemed, the more the Austrians, the Neopolitans, the Russians and the English discussed doing so." Done
Purpose
- As above, I'd rename this "Purpose and formation" and add in information on the order of battle, moving the awkwardly placed "(See also Army of the Danube Order of Battle)" bit from the next secton to a "mainarticle" hatnote on this renamed section. not sure what a hatnote is, but I tried to incorporate it in the text.
Crossing the Rhine.
- Okay, call me stupid and ignorant of military matters, but the article says advanced in four columns, and then you list five formations...I'm getting addition problems here. You're certainly not stupid. It was murky at best, and Jourdan didn't even explain it well--and he was there, and it was his idea. I've developed a map and tried to clarify in the text. Basically, there were five formations, and they crossed the Rhine at two places. One group went south. One went north, and the rest went through the middle. The map needs work, but I need a semi-pro on that.

Per your request, Auntie, I will look at the maps and see how I can improve them. It may take a few days to get back to you. Cheers, MapMaster (talk) 19:24, 14 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

- Why is "Although Jourdan could have established a position on the eastern slope of the mountains..." important? It seems totally detached from anything else that's dealt with. Explain it to the militarily inept here... why is this important that he did not take up the alternate position? explained. See if this is better.
Engagements:
- Ostrach -
  - Is ostensibly really needed in this phrase "This would ostensibly isolate the armies..."? Done
General: Do we have enough infoboxes here? My lord, there are four... are they ALL necessary? took one out. If I could combine them, I would. But the boxes won't let me. I've tried to make them shorter, but they won't let me do that either.
Another general note, you'll need to make your references a bit more consistent for FAC, if you head there. Some have dates of publicatin, some don't, some give place of publication, some don't. NOt a problem at GA, but can be at FAC I don't see what the inconsistency in the refs is. All citations have the same information in the same format (or at least appropriate information to what they are): the first mention of a citation has the full reference and subsequent use is a shortened form. I won't use that a-b-c- nonsense because it is too hard to edit later and too hard to read. The bibliography and citations follow an accepted manual of style. This style has been accepted at FAC before. See Cologne War, German Unification and Hermann Detzner.

I completely agree with your comment. While I'm not a big content editor (i.e. except for maps), I do add content at times and I find that a-b-c stuff just impossible for inexperienced editors. As I understand it, there are several official formats and no official format is to be given preference to any other. MapMaster (talk) 19:22, 14 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Also, your images are fine for GA status, but some of them are lacking in data that is usually asked for at FAC, specifically sources and original publication information, to establish public domain status. Just a heads up here. Done
To reiterate, the main concerns are the lead issues and the lack of information in the body of the article about the composition of the army. lead reworked. See if it meets your approval.
I've put the article on hold for seven days to allow folks to address the issues I've brought up. Feel free to contact me on my talk page, or here with any concerns, and let me know one of those places when the issues have been addressed. If I may suggest that you strike out, check mark, or otherwise mark the items I've detailed, that will make it possible for me to see what's been addressed, and you can keep track of what's been done and what still needs to be worked on.

I think I've addressed your issues. I've tried to, at least. I have someone helping me on the map. It's not satisfactory, but it will be. I'll find appropriate documentation on the pictures if I decide to take the article further. Auntieruth55 (talk) 01:57, 8 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's looking pretty good (I've been watching as you edited), but its late here so I'll check all this in the morning when I'm fresh. I know you take some stuff to FAC, so figured to mention anything I particularly noticed that would apply there while I was here (might as well fix it as you go...) The images are fine as they are, luckily. Ealdgyth - Talk 02:05, 8 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

New concerns:

Lead:
- "The army participated in four major battles: in the Battle of Ostrach and the battle of Battle of Stockach (1799),..." you say four major battles but list two. I'm not enough of an expert to know if the other two battles mentioned in the body text are major or not, but the contradiction in the lead needs to be fixed. okay, should be clearer now.
Images:
- Yeah, the new image needs the help of an expert, it's entirely too big at the current size, can you trim some of the excess white space from around it? if I coulda, I woulda...
Engagements:
- In the intro here you again mention two major battles, but four battles are listed below... okay
Battles at the Swiss. .
- "By mid-May, 1799, the began to Austrians wrest control of Switzerland from the French as the forces of Hotze.." I think something got left out as currently this makes no sense to me.
First Battle of Zurich:
- "Despite being wounded, he remained on the field." Who is he? Charles or Hotze?

everything else looks pretty good. All else should be fine. Just fix those things up (they should be simple, I just don't know the subject matter enough to deal with it myself) and promise me you'll get help with the picture if you go to FAC and we're good. DEFINITELY. Very interesting article, by the way! THANKS!

Ealdgyth - Talk 15:23, 8 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]