Talk:Composite bow/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Pyrotec (talk) 10:50, 29 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I will review. Pyrotec (talk) 10:50, 29 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Initial comments

This article might make GA-status this time round, if sufficient work is carried out to bring it up to the required. Much of the article appears to be at our about GA-level, particularly the latter parts of the article, starting with the Origins and use section. However, the WP:Lead is clearly inadequate, as is the Construction section. A number of the references are merely raw web links; and no attempt has been made to "correctly" cite them. Pyrotec (talk) 19:38, 3 June 2011 (UTC), but I did "clean some up" as I reviewed the article. Pyrotec (talk) 08:55, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There are also technical terms that are undefined (or un-linked) and sometimes not discussed; and there seems to be little discussion of strings and none of arrows. Pyrotec (talk) 07:17, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There also seems to be a lack of consistency regarding the scope of this article: much of the article is written from a historical perspective and it mostly covers natural materials, but modern-day composite bows and glass-fibre construction seems to have been thrown in as a "after-thought" in a couple of places. If is intended that the article is to cover both historical/traditional and modern composite bows, then it needs to be made consistent, i.e. construction needs to include glass-fibre lamination and glass-fibre (perhaps carbon fibres) need to be included as construction materials. Pyrotec (talk) 07:36, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm now going to work my way through the article section by section, but I'm going to leave the WP:Lead until last. The Lead is, at best, a disaster, so its going to need a re-write - I also suggest that guide WP:Lead is studied, but I will come to that later on.

Construction -

This section is at best a disaster. I would suggest that Crossbow, which has a Construction section, Longbow, which has a Design and construction, or English longbow, which has a Description be studied as good (but not GA) "Bow" articles to emulate.
It "reads" as a set of instructions, possibly of the type found in flat pack furniture, for building a composite bow but without the illustrations and the list of parts. Wikipedia is intended to be an encyclopedia, not a recipe for building a composite bow.
It is completely uncited, so it is little more than a set of opinions and it is written in the present tense, so its not intended to be a summary of how composite bows were made.
It is incomplete: it seems to stop at "After months of drying the bow is ready for finishing", with no discussion of finishing unless of course the comment "Thin leather or waterproof bark may be used, to protect from moisture, and recent Turkish bows were often highly decorated" is intended to be a description of the finishing process.

Materials -

I'm not convinced that this section, is a stand-alone section in its own right. Both it and the Construction section are quite "thin"; and I think the article would read better if this was made a subsection within the Materials section.
It appears to be written roughly "as seen by the archer, in that bone is discussed first, followed by wood, then sinew; and then it goes back to bone substitutes. In which case, bone substitutes could be discussed alone with bones. However, the sequence of the Construction section is wood, horn, sinew; and then waterproofing and decoration, which is not mentioned here. Some consistency between these two initial sections would, I suspect, improve the readability of the article.
Ref 1 is merely a "label" for a website: no credit is given to the (named) author of the web site, the title of the article is not given, nor the date of the website. I suggest that it is properly cited, using {{cite web}} if necessary - the use of this template is not mandatory, but the referenced does need to be properly given, and it is not properly cited at present.
Half of the first paragraph (three sentences) is referenced by citation 1, but the second are third sentences are unreferenced, and seem to be merely opinions.
Ref 2 is a book, but it is not properly cited (use {{cite book}} if necessary) and the web link is WP:SPAM - its an invitation to buy the book.
The technical term "The siyahs" is used, but no attempt is made to explain what they are; and I've not been able to find a separate article in wikipedia that describes them. Interestingly, they are described later in this article in the Technical changes to classical times section, but since they are named here first they aught to be defined here.
The next two paragraphs are uncited and seem to be merely opinions.
Ref 4 is merely two separate "label"s for the same website: no credit is given to the corporate author of the web site. I suggest that it is properly cited, using {{cite web}} if necessary - the use of this template is not mandatory, but the referenced does need to be properly given, and it is not properly cited at present.
Ref 5 appears to be entirely WP:SPAM.

....stopping for now. To be continued. Pyrotec (talk) 20:59, 3 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Advantages and disadvantages of composite construction -

Mostly well referenced, but the first paragraph is entirely unreferenced and the statement about draw-weight and energy aught to have a citation. As should the final sentence of the third paragraph.
These are technical terms and their meanings are not defined nor discussed. There is no mention of the magnitude of these parameters and how they might compare to other types of bow construction.

Origins and use -

Its not clear what reference 9 is meant to be: there is a web link but it appears to be broken.
I presume on the basis of ISBNs that references 10 and 11 are books. They should be properly cited.
The third paragraph is mostly unreferenced. Since various claims are being made, citations should be provided so that they are WP:Verifiable.

Technical changes to classical times -

Overall, a much better section.
Ref 12 needs to be properly cited (see above).
In Scythian bows, bending tips, it states that "Variants of the Scythian bow were the dominant form for millennia in the area between China and Europe", but no attempt is made to define the time frame (other than millennia); and its not clear what is meant by "the area between China and Europe".

- Siyahs/kasans, stiff tips -

Generally OK, but the sentence "Later, it became usual to stiffen the ends of composite bows" is unnecessarily vague. The obvious (unasked) question is "when?" and that is not answered.

- Laths stiffening the grip -

Ref 22 should be properly cited.
Ref 23 has a broken web link. The reference seems to be book, if it is the web link in not really needed but the citation should be properly made.

Post-classical development -

Refs 25 & 26 should be properly cited.
The claims made in final sentence in the first paragraph should have a citation(s), so that they can be made WP:Verifiable.
Refs 27, 28, 29 & 30 should be properly cited.

American sinew-backed bows -

The beginning of this section, i.e. "When Europeans first contacted Native Americans, some bows, especially in the area that became California, already had sinew backing" is rather vague in respect of date(s).

Modern living traditions of composite bows -

The first paragraph contains a number of claims: all are unreferenced.
The Korean bow and the Perso-Parthian bow subsections are unreferenced.

Scope -

This article is about a weapon (for killing things - people & animals) and whilst there is a great deal about the history of the bows' development there is almost no technical detail. Nothing about strings: draw-strength and energy is mentioned but without a string these can't exist; and presumably development of bows would have gone in parallel with development of strings.
The projectile, arrows, are almost ignored, they are mentioned only once, in Scythian bows, bending tips.
There is almost no mention of size, it is only mentioned in Scythian bows, bending tips and Additional stiffening laths.
There is little mention of range: it is mentioned in Mongol bow and Korean bow.

WP:Lead -

This is intended to both introduce the topic and provide a summary of the main points in the article. Perhaps that is what it attempts to do? It's quite superficial in its coverage, perhaps expanding it to about twice its current size to include a summary of the main points in the article might bring it up to standard.

At this point I'm putting the review On Hold. Pyrotec (talk) 09:11, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks for your useful comments. Before I address them I must apologise for the vagueness on several issues. The fact is that I don't have the information to make these points more definite, and as far as I know nobody else does either. This applies to most of the dates, to the geographical areas, and to either effective or maximum ranges. Also to strings; anything can be used, and no string type is consistently associated with composite bows. We might write something on arrowheads, since metal ones often do survive and the "Scythian" trilobate type is well-recognised, but even then we don't actually know which type of bow shot them. The development of composite bows happened over a very long time, in a very large area inhabited by people who generally wrote very little of anything and nothing about bows, and the archaeology of organic remains is minimal. Whatever Attila the Hun and his predecessors were doing, they weren't writing down details of bow construction! Secondary sources are either equally vague, or give the best details available of specific archaeological finds. I've included a few specific details - possibly too many, as I don't think they're generally suitable for an encyclopedic article. I might move the text about the Qum-Darya bow to the references, if you agree. In the American case, while a very few bows have been preserved as archaeology from before European contact, we generally can't give any more precise indication than the fact of a certain bow type being in use when the Europeans arrived and started writing things down. And I don't think that a detailed chronology of the American frontier is appropriate or even useful here. As for the modern materials, I don't think we need to say anything about them except that they have been used to make cheap imitations.

Anyway, thanks again, all further comments welcome, and I'll get to work, tomorrow I hope. Richard Keatinge (talk) 12:55, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not asking for original research and that would not be appropriate, so if the information is not available I'm happy to accept a clear statement or statements, that the information is "not known", is "inconsistent", has "not survived", etc, as appropriate. The article has certainly been improved over the last ten days. Are you still working on it? Pyrotec (talk) 15:11, 19 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm hoping that it's now ready to pass. I've been through all of your points and tried to use them, thanks again. If there are any further issues - I do hope not - I'll attend to them tomorrow. Richard Keatinge (talk) 18:34, 19 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There were several links (four or five) to disambiguation pages, so I've moved them all accept one to what I think is the right articles. Perhaps my changes (see article's revision history here) could be checked; and the one I did not do (i.e. Mamluk dynasty), changed to the correct article. Thanks. Pyrotec (talk) 18:44, 20 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Overall summary

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

The article has been much improved, I'm therefore closing this review.

Is it reasonably well written?
A. Prose quality:

B. MoS compliance for lead, layout, words to watch, fiction, and lists:
Is it factually accurate and verifiable?
A. References to sources:

B. Citation of reliable sources where necessary:

C. No original research:
Is it broad in its coverage?
A. Major aspects:

B. Focused:
Is it neutral?
Fair representation without bias:
Is it stable?
No edit wars, etc:
Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?
A. Images are copyright tagged, and non-free images have fair use rationales:
Well illustrated.

B. Images are provided where possible and appropriate, with suitable captions:
Well illustrated.
Overall:
Pass or Fail:

In the light of the discussion above and recent improvements, I'm happy to award this article GA-status. Congratulations on bringing the article up to GA. Pyrotec (talk) 19:02, 20 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks for your time and trouble. Richard Keatinge (talk) 07:55, 21 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]