User talk:Eeng1/sandbox

Peer Review

First off, I want to say good job with the structuring in this sandbox. It's easier to read through because of how organized it is. The amount of relevant content you guys are adding to the article is great.The content in the sections are balanced well and one single section doesn't seem to be overpowering others. In the original article the 'Successes of the first five-year plan' seemed to be a bit underdeveloped and I think the edited version was very well done; great use of sources and images.

Although this is just a draft and I can see you're still working in these sections, be sure to watch out for grammar and keep in mind the readability factor(in sections like 'Industrial Achievements of the First Five Year plan, and 'Failures of the First Five Year Plan'). I would just try to make sure the sentences flow well. But good job with the information being added there.

Overall, I think you guys are doing a great job expanding and adding content to this article while keeping in mind relevance. The tone in the drafts are from a neutral viewpoint, and there's a good amount of sources being used--which I think is helpful in terms of making it well rounded. I'm definitely going to try and use some of the things you guys are doing as an example of how I can further improve my draft. Rhasiat93 (talk) 16:06, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

Peer Review: Blandford

I agree with the above reviewer that you are off to a good start. The below is my honest assessment of what could make this a better article. Keep up the good work.

1. There is no lead section. 2. There is no reference section.

   a.  Each section has its own reference section which makes it hard to follow the flow of the article.
   b.	Some of the references listed were incomplete and therefore could not be seen as reliable sources.

3. Successes of the first five-year plan. I thought this section was very well written. The coverage was balanced and the structure of the paragraphs was easy to follow and was in chronological order which was easy to follow. The content was not biased or judgmental in way (neutral). 4. Failures of the first five-year plan

   a.	 “With the first five-year plan came failures as well.” Is redundant as the section heading already states this fact.
   b.	 This famine led many Russians to relocate to find food, jobs, and shelter outside of their small villages which caused many towns to become overpopulated. Their diet consisted of bread but there was a major decrease in the amount of meat and diary they were receiving if any at all.[1] Aside from the three to four million people dying because of starvation or even freezing to death because of waiting in line for rations, people were not wanting or unable to have children which assisted in the decrease of the population. 
        1.  These facts, although failures, would be best covered in an article about the famine.  
   c.  The sentence starting with “Aside from the three to four million people dying…” does not seem to have any structure to the sentence.  There is no point.  What about the 3 to 4 million people?  What is the connection between the 5-year plan failures and this sentence. 

5. Industrial Achievements of The First Five Year Plan

   a.	The sentence beginning with “Despite the fact that during this time, there was a lack of skilled workers…” does not complete its thought.  The sentence leaves the reading asking “Despite what?”
   b.  This section lists items which are obviously still under construction, but the outline of the article is good and follows a logical path.
   c.  References are incomplete.

6. Agricultural collectivization

   a.  The sentence “One reason for the collectivization of Soviet agriculture was to increase the number of industrial workers for the new factories” doesn’t tell you how agricultural collectivization would help provide industrial workers for new factories.  It just hopes you believe the statement is true.  If you answer the question of “How” or “Why” for this sentence then the article will be much better.
   b.	 Kolkhoz:  I would add a hyperlink to this word as it is important to your article.  There are many articles about kolkhoz which would add value to your reader.
   c.	 The rest of the article seems to be a cut and paste from the original article.  This is obviously still under construction at this time.

JerryBlandford (talk) 17:59, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

Ryan's review

I found this article to be very informative and extensive. I like how the article breaks the first five year plan down by successes and failures. Perhaps there should be more information under the failures section. I clicked the link to the “large-scale famine in the Soviet Union” article and there are some interesting numbers on how many people actually died and some other negative aspects of the first five year plan. The first sentence in the section titled “Industrial Achievements of the First Five Year Plan” is a little confusing. This section's inclusion into the article is good, I’d be interested to see what other information could be added to this section. The section titled “Agricultural collectivization” is very well put together. I like the information you added. This article as a whole is very well cited and interesting to read. I will be interested to read this one once you all are done with it.(Vsquad93 (talk) 18:11, 8 April 2018 (UTC))

Simone's Peer Review

It looks like you guys are off to a good start. I thought it was very helpful that you had posted the original article content for each section. It allowed me to compare the original and revised content, which made it a lot easier to provide feedback. You guys did a good job of presenting unbiased information and citing your sources. Your sources all seem good. I noticed in the original article the author cited Stalin's own words as a source. I think we can all agree that Stalin was biased on whether or not the First Five Year Plan was successful. So I would suggest you remove anything cited to him as a source. I have organized my suggestions by section below.

Lead It doesn't look like you guys are planning to edit the lead section. But I think it could be improved.

Legacy Maybe this section should be removed since it's only one sentence?

Agricultural Collectivization- The addition says that collectivization was “integral” to the First Five Year Plan, but does not say why it was integral or explain that statement. It reads as more of an opinion because it is not followed up with facts. This section also states that there were many goals of collectivization, but only lists one goal, the economy. This section could use more specific details. Also the sentence about goals says that it will “spurn” the economy. I don’t think this word is being used correctly?

Also, the content shown for the original article seems pretty weak and factually inaccurate to me, I would get rid of a lot of it. Most of the statements about NEP are really out of place and not relevant. Some of them are totally inaccurate. The original author doesn’t seem to have cited any sources and doesn’t really seem to touch on the main important motivations for collectivization. This section should focus more on the motivations for collectivization. You could talk a bit more about the idea that improved technology (like tractors) would increase crops yields and why that didn’t turn out to be true. I think it’s important to go back a bit and try to explain the political conditions from NEP to the first five-year plan and explain why the Bolsheviks felt the need to gain control over agriculture. Explain that Stalin was obsessed with industrializing and he needed to be in control of ratcheting up production on the primary economic resource that he was hoping would finance his great experiment with industrialization. You could also explain more about why the peasants were hoarding their grain. The revised article mentions “the recruitment of peasants” to collectivize. I think it is important to explain forced collectivization rather than making it sound voluntary.

Successes of the First Five Year Plan- I was a little confused by this section because it seemed to be pretty much the same as the original one, but just reorganized a bit? I did think it was helpful that it starts out by saying that many of the goals were not met. The original article seems biased to me. It makes it sound like the plan was a success and I don’t know that is a very accurate depiction? This section needs more facts to show specifically which successes were attributable to the first five-year plan. I think the vague statement about the first five-year plan being the beginning of the Soviet Union’s journey as a “superpower through industrialization” should be removed because it isn’t really fact based. I would also remove that part about Stalin declaring it a success because he isn’t exactly an unbiased opinion on whether or not it was successful. I found the part about the journalist named Walter Duranty and Roosevelt a bit out of place and irrelevant. Interesting facts but not really relevant to the First Five Year Plan.

Failures of the First Five Year Plan- I thought some of the stuff from the original that was removed should have been kept. Starting out the section by pointing out that it was doomed to fail from the beginning due to unrealistic quotas is an important part of this section but it was removed. However, I thought it was nice that you added in more detailed information about why the quotas were unrealistic. This section needs a better explanation of the famine and why it occurred. The current explanation sounds like they just had a bad harvest one year and doesn’t explain any of the atrocities associated with forced collectivization which ultimately led to the famine. It would also be helpful to provide some of the data that showed just how poorly the agriculture yields turned out under the first five year plan. Maybe mention the peasants killing their livestock and how that impacted yields? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Simonekjo (talk • contribs) 07:19, 9 April 2018 (UTC)