Wikipedia:Featured article review/Battle of Moscow/archive1

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was delisted by Nikkimaria via FACBot (talk) 5:58, 25 July 2020 (UTC) [1].

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Battle of Moscow

Notified: Grafikm fr, Russia WT:MILHIST WT:GERMANY, 2020-01-28 talk page notification

Review section

I am nominating this featured article for review because it was highlighted for deficiencies, such as "considerable amounts of uncited text", back in January 2020 and these issues have not been resolved. buidhe 01:02, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Comment The sourcing is clearly not of FA standard:

• It includes large numbers of references to memoirs of some of the generals involved (Guderian and Zhukov), which are primary sources - Guderian's memoirs are also regarded as unreliable by modern historians, and I doubt Zhukov's Soviet-era memoirs are also of a reasonable standard. All of these references need to be replaced, with the corresponding text reviewed for accuracy.
• Some of the citations are odd - for instance "Glantz, chapter 6, sub-ch. "Viaz'ma and Briansk", pp. 74 ff."
• What work the references to 'Clark' are is unclear as it's not listed in the source's section. I suspect that these are references to Alan Clark's book Barbarossa: The Russian-German Conflict, 1941–1945 which is now considered outdated at best.
• Less seriously, there's also inconsistency in how the citations are formatted, etc. Nick-D (talk) 08:57, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Comment: The article has not kept up with the times as can be seen here: "Featured article review needed". The issues are too extensive to be able to fix them quickly. --K.e.coffman (talk) 02:44, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Comment: I concur, this is not up to current FA standard.

• There are some citation required tags although these may be easily fixed. However, there are potentially other unsourced statements that are untagged but should be. For example, Reinhardt is listed in the infobox as a commander on the German side but never mentioned in the text and thus this fact is uncited. Much of the rest of the article is going to need to be factchecked.
• The sources themselves are quite a mixed bag and how some of them are used is concerning. Examples include Zhukov and Guderian as sources for some quite sweeping statements rather than being limited solely to expressing their personal (ex posto) analysis, subject to qualification RE Guderian's unreliable memoirs. A TV documentary is a source - it seems bizarre that this is necessary give the amount of print literature on the subject.
• The article also seems to lack content with no distinct explanation of an order of battle so units and generals pop up at random often with little context. For example, it is never explicitly stated that Bock was commander of Army Group Centre.

The amount of work that will be required to resolve all the issues will be a significant undertaking. Zawed (talk) 23:54, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

• Agree this is not up to FA standards by a long shot. Memoirs by participants should really not be used here. Renata (talk) 17:50, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

• Move to FARC, lead author long gone, no one has taken it on, no improvement. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:11, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

FARC section

Issues raised in the review section largely concern sourcing. Nikkimaria (talk) 12:10, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

• Delist This article clearly isn't of featured status at present. Nick-D (talk) 12:15, 11 July 2020 (UTC)
• Delist per above. (t · c) buidhe 12:20, 11 July 2020 (UTC)
• Delist for the reasons outlined above. Zawed (talk) 22:08, 11 July 2020 (UTC)
• Closing note: This removal candidate has been delisted, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please leave the {{featured article review}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. Nikkimaria (talk) 15:58, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.