Talk:The Holocaust/GA1

GA Review

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch

Reviewer: Midnightblueowl (talk · contribs) 23:18, 2 February 2013 (UTC) Hello there. I'm no expert in this subject, but I would be interested in undertaking this particular GA review, with the help of others if they are also interested. Midnightblueowl (talk) 23:18, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Checklist

Rate	Attribute	Review Comment
1. Well-written:
	1a. the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct.	I think that there is a lot of superfluous wording here, alongside other textual issues. For example: * "Etymology and use of the term" could be better titled "Etymology and terminology." * "used in English to denote great massacres" - is "great" really the best term to be using here, considering its multiple meanings ? * "television mini-series Holocaust" - what country was this produced in; in what nations did it introduce the word "Holocaust" too ? I could go on and on...
	1b. it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.	* The lead does not sufficiently summarize the rest of the article; there is little or no mention, for instance, of the legacy left by the Holocaust, or the original motivation of those who perpetrated it. * The general layout of the article is not as user friendly as it could be, for instance jumping about chronologically between the "Distinctive Features" and "Development and execution" sections. The reader is told about the extermination camps before learning the reasoning behind the genocide. * Why are some subsections in the "Development and execution" section given dates, and others not ? * Whole chunks of text are just quotes from published sources, which is not permitted by Wikipedia policy. * Again, I could go on...
2. Verifiable with no original research:
	2a. it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline.	Not all paragraphs are referenced.
	2b. reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose).	There are sentences, such as that beginning with "The Nazis used a euphemistic phrase..." which are unreferenced. There is also at least one "[citation needed]" notification.
	2c. it contains no original research.	There are sentences, such as that beginning with "The Nazis used a euphemistic phrase..." which are unreferenced; are they therefore original research ?
3. Broad in its coverage:
	3a. it addresses the main aspects of the topic.	There is little on the Holocaust's legacy in the world.
	3b. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).	Some sections go into quite a bit of detail, others go into very little; Wikipedia cannot accept this haphazard manner.
	4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.	I'm not confident that this page manages to remain neutral on this hugely controversial issue; its use of language consistently betrays a bias towards the belief that the Holocaust was a bad thing. For instance, the term "murder" is regularly employed – I appreciate that this term is itself widely used in the literature on the Holocaust, but it is also a term that carries with it solely negative connotations. Imagine that you were a Nazi, or a Neo-Nazi, who really believed that the Jews were an evil threat to German civilization who had to be eradicated; would you consider the deaths in the Holocaust to constitute "murder" in that instance, or would you instead think of them as justified executions ? Terms like "killings", "deaths" and "genocide" could be used without the same connotations. Furthermore, in a brief section discussing the Nazi motivation for the Holocaust, it remarks "in an attempt to justify the killings", containing the implication that the killings were not succesfully justified; a far more NPOV use would be "as justification for the killings". Furthermore, there seems to be a major emphasis on the genocide of the Jews, not of other communities exterminated by the Nazis; this betrays a bias towards the controversial belief that the "Holocaust" refers only to the extermination of the Jews which can be seen as denigrating the suffering inflicted upon homosexuals, the disabled, Romani etc.
	5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.
6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:
	6a. media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content.
	6b. media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.
	7. Overall assessment.	There's clearly been a lot of great work that's gone on here recently, and the page is in much better shape than when I last checked it out. I'm sad to say however that I cannot award it GA status, for it falls short on far too many of the categories. It really is an important issue, and for this reason has to be really, really good before it can go on to reach GA and then FA. I'm sceptical that continual tinkering will actually bring this article up to GA quality; I think it needs a methodological, systematic improvement campaign, based on heavy use of the established, specialist and primarily academic literature into the subject. Ideally, that needs an expert in the subject. Midnightblueowl (talk) 00:07, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Comments on GA Review

Religious Leaders Definite 'Countervailing' Force Against Antisemitism

I definitely agree on the lack of neutrality in this article, but not for the same reasons sited in the review. The article portrays all German society as devote Nazis and antisemitic. It not only fails to acknowledge dissidents to the Nazi regime, but claims there were none. I have an interest in religious thought especially Lutheran religious leaders such as Bonhoeffer. A comment in the article reads:

"Saul Friedländer writes that: "Not one social group, not one religious community, not one scholarly institution or professional association in Germany and throughout Europe declared its solidarity with the Jews."[22] He writes that some Christian churches declared that converted Jews should be regarded as part of the flock, but even then only up to a point. Friedländer argues that this makes the Holocaust distinctive because antisemitic policies were able to unfold without the interference of countervailing forces of the kind normally found in advanced societies, such as industry, small businesses, churches, and other vested interests and lobby groups.[22]"

I believe this statement is the complete opinion of the writer, could possibly misrepresent Friedlander (although I have not read Friedlander's work), and is a false statement. The church was most definitely a countervailing force. Religious leaders such as Dietrich Bonhoeffer not only wrote as dissidents to Hitler, but also put their lives on the line (by choice) to stop Hitler. They used every means at their disposal to stop Nazism including plans to assassinate Hitler. Bonhoeffer was tragically killed before the end of the war by the same concentration camps he opposed. I think the article should, at least, be revised to include this alternative point of view and mention of leaders such as Bonhoeffer. The Bonhoeffer article also includes a more in-depth discussion of the church's role including claims of rigged church elections.

This maybe considered a fine point by many, but I think it is an important point underscoring the often overlooked German opposition forces to the Holocaust, antisemitism, and the Nazi party. Willsh10 (talk) 04:49, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

(I posted the below yesterday, but it didn't show up on the watch list. I realize that I don't understand the process that is being used here so would appreciate any correction of what I have done.)

I would have responded earlier but I am traveling, in fact to study certain aspects of the Holocaust. Thank you for the effort and comments above. I most certainly agree that the article is a long way from being a GA, if only because of the conflict between the definition in the first paragraph and the many paras and stats relating to non-Jews. A lot of discussion has taken place about the distinction between the Holocaust and the Nazi mass murders of non-Jews. This distinction, which is made by many prominent scholars of Nazi Germany, is well summed up by Timothy Snyder, Professor of History at Yale as follows "The term Holocaust was introduced after the war and, by the 1990s, was generally (although by no means always) understood to mean the mass murder of the Jews by the Germans. In this book the term Holocaust signifies the final version of the Final Solution, the German policy to eliminate the Jews of Europe by murdering them. (Snyder, Timothy (2010-10-12). Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin (Kindle Locations 7591-7594). Basic Books. Kindle Edition.)

I am also rather surprised at the opinion about the use of the word "murder" as reflecting a POV. What is important is that most if not all (I know of none who don't) reliable sources use the word "murder" as a descriptive word. I wouldn't consider a neo-nazi as a reliable source. Perhaps the Nazi leadership would not have used the word murder, but they were certainly convicted of it.

Within the history profession, the proper noun, Holocaust, is no longer controversial. Norman Finkelstein in his important muckraking book, The Holocaust Industry, describes how the capitalization was used by the American Jewish establishment for its own interests and prefers to use the term "Nazi holocaust". But he is really an exception within the history community, an important one non-the-less.

Your overall assessment is well taken. But when a real editing expert, Dianaa, offered to put the article in GA form, her suggestion to remove the list of non-Jewish victims met with resistance from those who do not distinguish Holocaust victims from all Nazi victims. This is an on-going problem and I see no resolution in the near future. In the meantime, there are a lot a good references in the article and for anyone who is willing to drill down there is a lot to learn. The more casual visitor will be rather puzzled.Joel Mc (talk) 07:04, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

point 2a

Reference 112 completely disagrees with the statement it is supposed to support. --Lacek2 (talk) 15:27, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

One should check not only of there are references, but if the references make any sense at all (particularly if they support a highly controversial statement). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lacek2 (talk • contribs) 15:28, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

It does not contradict the text at all, but it's not really a 'reference', but rather more a piece of supplementary information. The statement needs an actual reference. Paul B (talk) 15:55, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

I have added an actual reference, of course there are more...Joel Mc (talk) 17:03, 18 February 2013 (UTC)