Talk:Burke's Rangers/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: AustralianRupert (talk · contribs) 07:44, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

Comments

• G'day, I will review this article for GA. I had originally posted comments on the talk page of the article, as I didn't think I had time to post a full GA review, but now I have a bit of time on my hands, so I have moved those comments here and expanded upon them. Overall, I can see that quite a bit of work has been done on this article, which is great to see; however, I think that there is still a bit of work required to bring it up to GA standard. These are my comments/suggestions:

• the lead currently focuses more upon the unit's founder than the unit itself. I suggest expanding it a bit more to re-focus on the unit more; not done
• the lead currently contains some information not included in the rest of the article (e.g. "he was commissioned a Major by Gov. Thomas Pownall"). It should largely just summarise the body of the article, so if this is important enough for the lead, it should also be mentioned in the body; not done
• in the infobox "John Burk" --> "John Burke" (please also check elsewhere in the article for "Burk" and fix as necessary); done
• if possible, it would be an improvement if a relevant image could be added to the infobox; not done
• I suggest removing the campaign box from the article, as it seems more appropriate for an article on the war itself, rather than about a single unit; not done
• date ranges should be presented per the guidance at WP:DATERANGE, e.g. "1747–1762" --> "1747–62"; done
• watch for overlink in the infobox, for instance there is no need to reconnaissance and light infantry twice; done
• "At the close of King Philip's War..." and "...initially known as Falls Fight Township..." the italics aren't necessary here; done
• the header "Pre-war Period in the Contested Borderlands" should be simplified: "Pre-war period" is probably fine here; done
• "At his own expense, Burke built a stockade fort..." can you provide a year/date for this? not done
• "In 1746 an attack was made on this fort by members of the Wabanaki Confederacy who were attempting to drive out invading colonists....": watch out for passive language such as this. This can be made into active prose thusly: "In 1746, members of the Wabanaki Confederacy attacked the fort in an attempt to drive out the invading colonists." done
• there are many parts of the body of the article that appear to be uncited. At the bare minimum, to meet the referencing requirements, each paragraph should at least end in a citation that covers everything in the paragraph; not done
• in the Pre war section, Burke is listed as a major, then in a later section he is a captain. Is this correct? I think you should just remove the mention of his rank here, as he would have been a child at this point; done
• in the Creation of Rangers section, what is the purpose of presenting the quote in bold? Is this necessary? Equally, the quote should be attributed in text and have an inline citation; partially done (attribution not done)
• the header "Creation of Rangers" seems a bit awkward. I suggest maybe "Establishment of the Rangers" or something similar; done
• the article currently uses a mixture of US spelling (e.g. "defense") and British spelling (e.g. "honour"). Either is probably fine, but it should be consistent; done
• "Lieut. Sheldon was famous for his violent inclinations..." according to whom? not done
• I think the article needs some work on its narrative flow and grammar. In some cases the writing is a bit awkward, or wooden (single sentence paragraphs, and paragraphs that begin in the same way. In other places there are grammatical issues. For instance, this doesn't seem to be grammatically correct: "Massachusetts began in to pursue..." partially done
• "The latter company — known...": per WP:DASH, the emdash should be unspaced; done
• "commissioned an "Ensign of company..." the capitalization here should be lowercase per WP:MILTERMS; done
• in the French and Indian Wars section: "Burke and his company played an active role in the war." This single sentence paragraph should be merged into a longer one and should be made to flow with the narrative. Otherwise, it seems a bit awkward; done
• "There were no enemy attacks..." best to avoid the word "enemy" here. Can you reword it to be more descriptive? not done
• the body of the article says "Burke began recruiting his company in the winter of 1756..."; however, the infobox says that the unit was formed in 1747...this seems inconsistent; not done
• the infobox says that the unit ceased to exist in 1762, but the body of the article provides no explanation of this; partially done (but needs referencing and explanation (i.e. why did it disband);
• watch out for overlinking in the body of the article. The duplicate link checker tool identifies some examples of overlink, e.g. "Battle of Lake George" and "Fort William Henry"; done
• is the image of Montcalm relevant to this article? Was Montcalm part of the unit? If so, please tweak the caption to make the link clearer to the reader; not done
• the infobox states that the unit took part in a number of battles; however, not all of them appear to be discussed in the body of the article (for instance King George's War, Carillon and Ticonderoga; in addition the description of its involvement in the Siege of Fort William Henry could be expanded). If the unit took part in these actions, the narrative of the article should be expanded to mention these; 'not done
• "On April 11, 1755 Ephraim Williams of Deerfield..." present rank on first mention; done
• in the References section, only those works that have been specifically cited should be listed, otherwise they should be moved to a Further reading or External links section (e.g. what specifically does the Virtual Vault link cite? If it is relevant, can you please provide a more specific link?) done
• I suggest changing the heading "Rogers' Rangers" into "Disbandment" and merging it with the content of what is currently in the "Post war" section; done
• what makes franklincountyhistory.com a reliable source? not addressed
• in the Footnotes section, some of the references lack enough detail to allow the reader to verify the source. For instance, what are the full details for Hamilton, Flexner and O'Toole? (You have short citations to them, but no long citations in the References section); done
• in the Footnotes section, is this page range missing a page number? "pp. 127–"? Or are you saying that the work has a total of 127 pages. If this former, please add the missing page number, if the later, then it is not necessary and I'd suggest removing it; done
• "pp. 162–. " same as the above point; done
• in the Footnotes section, the bare url in Footnote 2 should probably be formatted to include details such as the title of the page, publisher, accessdate etc. done
• in the Footnotes section, while it is not a GA requirement, it would be an improvement if you used a consistent citation style; done
• the References section should be sorted alphabetically by author surnames; done
• "Academic historians often regard Eckert's books, which are written in the style of novels, to be unreliable, as they contain things like dialogue that is clearly fictional" -- this sort of commentary probably needs to be sourced or removed; done
• not all the works in the References section seem to be specifically cited. If not, they should most likely be moved to the Further reading section; not done
• are there ISBNs that could be added for the Schultz and Bodge works, so that they are consistent with the other works listed in the References section? done

• Anyway, these are all the suggestions I have for the moment. I will wait a week or so to see how you go with fixing or responding to these comments, and then come back and finalise the review. If you have any questions, or concerns about what I've written, please let me know. I'm happy to try to clarify anything that isn't clear, etc. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 07:44, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

@Capitalismojo: G'day, how are you getting on with this? It has been over a week now and there doesn't appear to have been any progress. I am happy to extend the review if you need a bit longer, as I am keen to see this article pass, but I don't want to leave it open indefinitely. As such, I will leave the review open until next weekend my time (today is Sunday where I live, so I will come back next Sunday) and see how you are getting on. If there has been progress and it looks like it is heading in the right direction, I will happily leave it open a bit longer. If not, then I will archive the review and you can work on it in your leisure and renom when you feel it is ready. Cheers, AustralianRupert (talk) 04:58, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

G'day, I have done some editing on the article today, to correct some of the points I've raised above; however, some of the more significant content issues, I am unable to help with. I intend to come back tomorrow to see if these have been addressed. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 01:25, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

Ok, I am going to close the review as unsuccessful now. For me, the key issues that remain are to do with content and referencing. I've marked where I feel more citations are needed. If any further clarification is needed, please let me know (on my talk page, as I won't keep watching this GAN page). Good luck with taking this article further. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 22:31, 19 September 2015 (UTC)