Talk:Winston Churchill/GA1

GA Reassessment

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This article is currently at the top of the Good Article cleanup list by tags, and so I am starting a good article reassessment. Here are the initial issues that I found in a quick sweep:

• First, tags:
  • References needed banner in Ancestors section
  • Cleanup banner in External links section
  • Three citation needed tags scattered through the article
  • Nine tagged dead links
• There are numerous other unreferenced areas in the article, including opinions and at least one quote.
• Google books should not be listed as the publisher of a book, it's merely the archiving service - see refs #18 and 219-221, for instance.
• Text shouldn't be sandwiched between images.
• There are a lot of one- and two-sentence paragraphs, which make the article read very choppily. This is a more minor issue, though.
• "It has been claimed that the young Churchill first developed" - claimed by who?
• Check for American spellings - I see "organization", "program"

These are the biggest issues, when/if they are addressed I'll take another swing through. Let me know if you have any questions. Dana boomer (talk) 01:04, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Dropped by and have done some tidying of the references: standardised on last/first format, fixed some dead links, google books replaced by publisher, depreciated parameters replaced. I have also handled the American spellings that you pointed out. I would suggest that the short form references be switched to Havard type linkage for ease of use at some point in the future. Hopefully some of the regular editors of the article can fix the textural points that you have raised and supply the missing references. Keith D (talk) 17:02, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Comments by Nick-D

I have the following comments on the coverage of Churchill's first term as PM:

• "it became clear that, following failure in Norway, the country had no confidence in Chamberlain's prosecution of the war and so Chamberlain resigned" - the views of "the country" (whatever that means) are irrelevant: he resigned as he'd lost the confidence of the MPs in his party (who are the people who actually decide who the PM is)
• "Churchill was still unpopular among many Conservatives and the Establishment" - and hugely unpopular among many on the left
• "By refusing an armistice with Germany, Churchill kept resistance alive in the British Empire and created the basis for the later Allied counter-attacks of 1942–45, with Britain serving as a platform for the supply of the Soviet Union and the liberation of Western Europe." - seems rather simplistic
• "It was Beaverbrook's business acumen that allowed Britain to quickly gear up aircraft production and engineering, which eventually made the difference in the war." - highly dubious: you can't expand plant space that quickly. Beaverbrook is generally considered a success, but he inherited an expanding and competent industry.
• Much of the material in the 'Relations with the United States' section has nothing to do with this topic
• The coverage of Churchill's role in the Dresden bombing is massively over-long, especially as the article doesn't cover his role in the overall bombing campaign against Germany (which accounted for something like a quarter of total British expenditure on the war).
• The article presents a ridiculously positive view of Churchill's performance as war leader. There's nothing at all on the fall of Malaya and Singapore or the Burmese campaign, nor the Greek campaign and Churchill's foolish obsession with finding a "soft underbelly" to the German empire (which led to several campaigns of doubtful value).
• The article also doesn't discuss the development of the post-war program during the war (which was widely seen as lacklustre, hence the massive swing to Labour which was seen as having much better ideas), or the fact that Churchill was leading a government of national unity which included Labour ministers in senior positions.
• The material on Churchill's The Second World War should note that much of it was actually researched and written by a team of military officers and historians (see David Reynolds' excellent book In Command of History). Nick-D (talk) 05:13, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Unfortunately, as the majority of the comments above have not been addressed, I am removing this article's GA status. Keith D, I truly appreciate your work, as it made the existing refs far better, but the cleanup banners and unreferenced areas continue to be a problem. Dana boomer (talk) 23:30, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

I must say that I am disappointed by the absence on any editing by regular editors of this article. Without any sources I could not do any of the work in that area. Keith D (talk) 01:29, 15 January 2014 (UTC)