Talk:World War II Radio Heroes

this is a university assignment

This article is for a school project. Please do not delete it but help us improve! Wexlax20 (talk) 22:50, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

comments

okay, good start. Please do use the proper citation form I've told you about. I fixed two, but as you add more, you can do them properly, please. I'm not sure you can say "minor" listeners. They may have been "minor" in Lisa's book, but their experience with others might not be so. I suggest either renaming that or deleting it. I'm not exactly sure of the point to listing all the listeners anyway...Auntieruth55 (talk) 02:44, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

This is not part of the GA review, since I've done minor work on the article myself. However from Berg's description I note there is more material in Spahr's book that could be covered. For example, the US government actively discouraged such monitoring because it felt the POW broadcasts were propaganda intended to weaken the morale of relatives and friends of missing men. - LuckyLouie (talk) 17:18, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Louie, I was thinking of adding other things too but wouldn't that then make this a book report rather than a book review?Wexlax20 (talk) 13:30, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

WP book articles are not really "reports" or "reviews". In the case of non fiction books, they are essentially dispassionate descriptions based on material that reliable, independent sources have published about the book. You can describe what's in the book, just avoid adding your own opinions ("a powerful tale" etc.) into the mix. Quoting reviews is fine if the reviewer is an independent, published source. ("Technology writer Fred Osterman called the book "a well researched and powerful tale"). Don't quote the publisher or author's own publicity blurbs. - LuckyLouie (talk) 14:06, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

This still needs expansion and clarity. There are many many typos. I'm concerned about the long lists of names and what the purpose of these are. Auntieruth55 (talk) 15:06, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:World War II Radio Heroes: Letters of Compassion/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: –– Jezhotwells (talk) 12:52, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

I shall be reviewing this article against the Good Article criteria, following its nomination for Good Article status.

Disambiguations: No disambiguations found

Linkrot: One dead link found and tagged, redirects to Google search page.[1]

Comment - That's odd. It's not coming up dead for me, maybe I have it in my cache? Search for "Spahr" at Sewickly Herald and the story comes up. - LuckyLouie (talk) 14:46, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Hmmm, I am located in the UK, maybe it is some sort of server issue. I have removed the dead link tag. –– Jezhotwells (talk) 16:54, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Checking against GA criteria

GA review (see here for criteria)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS):

   This article is reasonably well written. I did make a number of copy edits.

   Lists are not recommended by WP:Manual of style#Bulleted and numbered lists. Please convert into prose. This applies to the sections: Shortwave Radio Listeners and Reviews of the Book Suggest you focus on the few listeners about whom you have written sentences and omit the others who are just listed by name.

   Section headings should not be capitalised throughout, see WP:Manual of style#Section headings]]. Suggest that Reviews of the Book be renamed Reception as that is then norm in Wikipedia.

   The Lead should be slightly expanded to more fully provide a succinct summary of the article.

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

   You can't use Amazon reviews, such as those listed at ref #3 [2] as thety are not reliable sources, just user contributed reviews.

   ref #5 [3] is dead as noted above.

   ref #7 [4] is also not a reliable source as per the comment on Amazon above.

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

   I feel the article could cover details of how Spahr hunted down the listeners, rather than just listing them. How did she go about this? Did she travel widely? This is an encyclopaedia article, not a review. There should also be details of publication date, publisher in the article as well as the infobox. Also sales details if possible. There are some very good suggestions on the article talk page.

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

6. 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):

   The image is incorrectly licensed, it should have a non free use rationale and the book cover license.

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

   OK, on hold for seven days for above issues to be addressed. Please leave your comments here, I have watchlisted this page. –– Jezhotwells (talk) 13:34, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

   Whilst some improvements have been made the article now has been expanded by the addition of relatively large sections on short-wave radio around the world and prisoners of war that mean that the article is no longer focussed on the subject matter which is the book. I am not going to list this at this time. I suggest that you have a think about this if you wish to write an artcile on the use of short wave in WWII then do so, but don't just stuff things in here in an effort to bulk the article out. It doesn't need all of this extra material. What it does need is more analysis (referenced of course) of the book. When you have decided what to do take this article to WP:Peer review. –– Jezhotwells (talk) 19:19, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Thank you very much for the GA Review. I have just spent a long time changing what you recommended and I have also added information concerning how and why Lisa went about her search. I also added information about the actual book such as publishing information, quality, ect. Please let me know if I need to improve on anything else. Thanks Wexlax20 (talk) 00:48, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

"Reception" should be converted to prose, too. See an example here: Outliers_(book)#Reception Gary King (talk) 00:57, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Right whilst there are improvements, theer is still a long way to go.

• The Lead section is too short, see WP:LEAD.
• The Summary' section should probably be called Background. I took out the oprice, this is not a bookshop. What we do need is the ISBN.
• Shortwave radio listeners The first sentence is redundant.
• Shortwave amateur moniors consolidate into previous section, shorten a little, along with the stuff about Jankauskas
• Get someone to copy-edit the artcile, the prose is poor and clumsy throughout.
• Reception. take out the bullets, turn into a short prose section. Unfortunately the "reviews" from the book's jacket don't qualify as reliable sources as they are in effect "self published". Surely some other newspapers or magazines published reveiws? –– Jezhotwells (talk) 08:52, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

The Summary seems to be saying the same few things over and over again. Surely the book is more than just names of listeners, their letters, and Spahr's gratefulness? I'd expand and edit the copy myself, but would need to see the book to do it. - LuckyLouie (talk) 22:39, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Thank you very much for the GA Review. I have just spent a long time changing what you recommended and I have also added information concerning how and why Lisa went about her search. I also added information about the actual book such as publishing information, quality, ect. Please let me know if I need to improve on anything else. Thanks Wexlax20 (talk) 22:12, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

We have tried to fix all of your suggestions to the best of our ability. If you have any other comments please let us know, we are trying very hard!!Nicocorn20 (talk) 20:14, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

review and evaluation

This is much better. I've made some "tweaks". You'll need to add page numbers from where you cite Spahr's book. I've "cloaked" some of the text that seems extraneous. Perhaps at a later date it will fit better into this article or a different one. The point is to keep the material focused on Spahr's work. Did we ever learn how many POWs were affected by the radio heroes? Did we ever learn if Spahr is planning another book? always refer to her as Spahr, or Lisa Spahr, not Lisa. You have the following tasks to do:

1. add page number references to Spahr's book.
2. proofread at least one more time. I found many typos and spelling errors, some of which I corrected. Punctuation goes before the footnote reference, not after.
3. find additional citations (Spahr would be best, or others) as suggested in text; the more you can link to Spahr the better. If you have consecutive pages, use this formatting <ref name=Spahr86 >Spahr, p. 86</ref> then following <ref name-Spahr86 />
4. make sure all references are consistently formatted. There should be no bare links--all links should be encased in [http://www.duq.edu brackets] as I showed you in class.
5. Make sure all dates are consistently formatted: 15 April 2010 (write out the month). Some of them are 15 April 2010, and some are Apr 15, 2010, etc. The month must be written out.
6. address the details of the review (above), particularly this one:

   I feel the article could cover details of how Spahr hunted down the listeners, rather than just listing them. How did she go about this? Did she travel widely? This is an encyclopaedia article, not a review. There should also be details of publication date, publisher in the article as well as the infobox. Also sales details if possible. There are some very good suggestions on the article talk page.

Let me know where else you three have contributed. This is much improved. Auntieruth55 (talk) 16:50, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Improvements ahead

After the student has gotten their grade for this article, I plan to remove a significant amount of "filler" (WP:OR) that was added, I assume in good faith, to "bulk the article up." A majority of the photos are unrelated and erroneous; german prisoners of war, a parabolic antenna used for moonbounce communications, unrelated citizens band radio equipment, a Morse Code sound file and chart, etc. These will go. I also plan to remove "sales details" such as book prices, retailer websites, and ordering information. This was likely a misunderstanding of a request to add sales figures; generally something that's noted for best selling books, but does not apply to this book. Also removed will be lengthy but off-topic diversions, such as one regarding electromagnetic waves that seems to be trying to connect amateur radio operation with "ticking noises" (the telegraph?). The article also confuses the capabilities of licensed radio amateurs, some of whom listened to short wave broadcasts during the war years, with unlicensed people who listened to short wave as a hobby (i.e. SWL's). Since the foreign broadcasters such as Radio Berlin did not send news of POW's via morse code (or ever broadcast in Morse code) the characterization will also be removed. I'll do a rewrite that corrects this misinformation and adds a substantive discussion of the problems faced by SWL's covered in Spahr's book using the only comprehensive review of the title by Jerry Berg. The article will be much shorter as a result, however I feel it will better conform to our policies and be more accurate. - LuckyLouie (talk) 02:34, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

OK, I've made a significant edit and restructure based on the points described above. - LuckyLouie (talk) 18:54, 14 May 2010 (UTC)