Wikipedia:Peer review/Finnish Civil War/archive2

Finnish Civil War

This one had a peer review before which didn't receive that much feedback but during the GA nomination it was improved greatly. Now it is a GA and quite nice article overall. Now before possible FA nomination we'd like to have some reviewing. --Pudeo (Talk) 21:14, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Very impressive! For FA nomination, I would focus your efforts on the lead. See WP:LEAD. This is a long article, and the lead does not adequately summarize its contents. Only two paragraphs, and one of them uses most of its words to describe alternate names for the war. In a very summarized form, I suggest answering the big questions of the article: what was the background to the conflict? The results? For example, it says "The Civil War was in many ways a major catastrophe for the Finnish nation and society" toward the end of the article. That's something the reader would want a brief explanation of in the lead. I'd suggest four paragraphs (others might say three).

Have an independent party review the prose to find improvements in sentence structure (always a good thing). I could offer some assistance, but it's probably too big an article to do it all. For example, A renewed attempt of russification began which was called "the second period of oppression 1908-1917". is awkward, and since it's in quotes, who called it that? Surely they didn't tack on a date range at the end? In general, there are a lot of date ranges in the form "during 2000-2006" which might be better written as "between 2000 and 2006".

Minor details: Full dates should be linked so date preferences can format them; years by themselves should not be linked. See WP:DATE.

With a bigger lead, you will do well in FAC. –Outriggr § 11:29, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Some thoughts...

• The tags on Image:Civil War Prison Camp in Helsinki.gif, Image:Suojeluskunta.jpg, Image:General Strike Helsinki 1917.jpg, Image:Peasants in finland.jpg and Image:Tampere war victims 1918.jpg are obsolete and needs to be replaced.
• In the section Background the line "Hence, the country was already divided many years before the Civil War" and the rest of the paragraph sounds very "essayish" in contrast to Encyclopedic (especially with the absence of an in-line cite to a source with such a summary). My recommendation would be to re-write and merge the content of that paragraph into the paragraph right above it.
• I would be aware of "POV Buzzwords" like the "unfortunately" in the line "Unfortunately, the social divisions and the heritage of the old regime led to a severe power struggle between the Social Democrats and Conservatives.". Fortunately (no pun intended) these can easily be reworded or removed without radically altering the content. Similar is the "merciless" in "The battle in burning Tampere was the first "city war" in Finland, merciless fighting, the Whites advancing house by house and the Reds retreating street by street.".
• Also with POV is the "assessment" of point of views being included in the article with lines like "However, this view is one-sided, an even more relevant cause being that since autumn 1917 there was no politically sound government which could use these means of control in the country."
• There are a couple areas that would be served well with an in-line cite. I've added a few tags to help out.
• I would work on the red links with at least stub article creation. Pertinent topics like the massacres mentioned in the section Red and White terror should have a little more context because of how much they relate and support understanding in this article.
  

Overall, I agree that it is a great article. I would be very aware of POV which I think will be scrutinized in FAC because of the sensitive subject matter. Agne 12:10, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

A bigger lead is now in User:RelHistBuff/sandbox/FCW. It's too long at the moment, but hopefully it will be modified to an appropriate form. Other changes made in the art. also, according to your review, thank you. --Ilummeen 18:03, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Peer review/Finnish Civil War/archive1

• Please see automated peer review suggestions here. Ruhrfisch 03:13, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Hello! Here are my observations so far:

• Lead now seems too long (I notice above it used to be too short). The first paragraph (quite long) summarizes the whole article nicely, but then the next paragraph goes into the background leading up to the war and stops, instead of succinctly summarizing whole article from background, through war, to the result. Perhaps work on that first paragraph, splitting it up into 2 or 3 paragraphs and adding to it just a tad, and cutting out the rest and merging anything it had with the main article below.
• In the lead: "both as troops and weapons" is a tad confusing. Do you mean both countries contributed both of these? Also "as" should probably be "with" and should be switched around thus: "with both troops and weapons"
• "The Civil War is the only conflict in the history of Finland that has caused a major dispute even on the name of the war" -- assuming this is saying that this is the only conflict to have a major dispute in naming the war? If so, perhaps re-word to "The Civil War is the only conflict in the history of Finland that has caused a major dispute with the name of the war"
• "Finland had been a northwestern part of the Russian Empire since 1809, autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland, led by the Russian tsar and priviliged, Finnish estates with no democratic rights for the common people" seems like it has some incomplete clauses in there.
• This sentence is a little confusing "The general strike of 1905 (due to defeat of Russia in the Russian-Japanese war) did not solve the problems as the Tsar could still regain his power and withdraw the power of the new Finnish parliament, established in 1906, based on broad universal suffrage." It doesn't really establish cause and effect and seems to start saying one thing, and then finishing off with explaining the Finnish parliment. Did the strike cause the establishment of the parliment? If so, state that first, and then say how this didn't solve the problems as the Tsar could, etc., etc.
• Not really sure what this sentence is trying to say: "The Russian Empire faced heavy pressure from the other European mights, the power policy resulting finally in the First World War in 1914." pressure to do what? and do you mean power struggle instead of power policy?
• "Economic problems such as unemployment and lack of food increased the fewer among the Finns." "increased the fewer" doesn't make sense
• "By the beginning of the year 1918, a "dual power" and "multiple sovereignty" had been formed in Finland and the Guards had become independent means of power even within their own policies" part in bold doesn't make sense to me.
• "As a result, the social conditions, standard of living and self-confidence of the workers rose slowly, but consistently between 1880-1914, socialism, nationalism and liberalism as the political tools" doesn't really make sense; seems to include partial clauses
• Which English spelling style is the article choosing? It seemed mostly American, so I corrected spellings with that in mind, but I also noticed a few UK spellings...
• "In 1917, the Finnish people stood at the crossroads where the old regime of the estates was slowly changing to a more democratic society accepting the power of the common people also, but the direction of the development was still uncertain and became a matter of heavy political dispute and fighting" is rather awkwardly worded.
• "Conservatives aimed at keeping power endangered by the new revolution in Russia" doesn't quite make sense. Do you mean "Conservatives aimed at keeping power that was endangered by the new revolution in Russia"?
• "Furthermore, the Battle of Tampere was the ultimate example of a civil war with "brother rising against brother", Finn against Finn" this declaration seems a little strange, since that is the definition of a civil war
• "The Germans initiated the attack on February 18 having demanded "requests for help" from the smaller countries west of Russia beforehand in order to provide an excuse" attack on whom? Russia? Might want to make that clearer.
• "At the same time, a moderate non-socialist, the eventual first president of Finland, K.J. Ståhlberg, elected July 25, 1919, struggling for parliamentarism, wrote" I know what you're trying to say here, but it's an awfully long list of qualifiers before we get to what he wrote. Not sure how to rewrite that....

Also, might want to mention that the universal suffrage was not limited to men-- it was the first European country to grant suffrage to women, if I remember correctly.

All in all, great job though! --plange 05:43, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Thank you --plange for the great comments and a special apology for forgetting you ladies with suffrage to women in 1906. I'm glad you noticed it, if you had not, I would be soon attacked by a female "flying detachment" of my own tribe at home :):) --Ilummeen 14:59, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

No problem! Are you Finnish? I lived in Kerava for about 10 months back in the 80s :-) I was an exchange student (from America). I remember while there several things the Finns were proud of (and rightly so) about their history, and one was female suffrage, and the other was gaining their independence (and keeping it through the second world war). I thought I remembered something about soldiers on skiis but couldn't remember which war... This was an interesting read for me as I didn't realize there'd been a civil war. Moi moi! --plange 15:16, 25 October 2006 (UTC)