Wikipedia:Featured article review/Sino-German cooperation (1911–1941)/archive1

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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 removed by Raul654 00:09, 15 March 2010 [1].

Sino-German cooperation (1911–1941)[edit]

Review commentary[edit]

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The article lacks citations in many places. Many subjective passages such as the legacy, attribution of motives and value judgments are uncited. In one case, a 1939 work is used as a cite for Hitler's legacy when later writers have the benefit of more hindsight; other contemporary sources are used that may be now out of date, including some primary sources YellowMonkey (Southern Stars photo poll) 06:19, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Media review

There's a lot of white space in the "Sino-German cooperation in the 1930s" section, which could probably be removed by alternating images and removing the two with uncertain provenance. DrKiernan (talk) 11:18, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment. Citation style is inconsistent and IMO, weird. Anotherclown (talk) 11:51, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: there are a few issues that I see with this article. As per above, the article needs more inline citations (at least one per paragraph, if not more), also there are a couple of MOS issues, but I will try to fix those myself. On my screen there is also a lot of whitespace due to image stacking, which I feel should be fixed too. As per Anotherclown's comment, I feel that "Ibid" should not be used in citations on wiki due to the fluid nature, which might mean that the original citation might get deleted, thus leaving a lot of Ibid's but no actual name. Hence, the Ibids should be changed to a more appropriate style that allows the reader to identify the source easily. Finally, there are a lot of links in the See also section, which I think is usually frowned upon at this level. I feel that these should be incorporated into the text if possible and removed (they may already be linked in the text, if so, I feel they should be removed from the See also section). — AustralianRupert (talk) 23:44, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, I think I've fixed the whitespace issue. Please review and if anyone disagrees it can be changed back. Before going any further, can we get some consensus on the citation style please? What style does everyone feel is appropriate for the article? I feel that the current one is not good and needs to be changed. My preferred is short citation style in Notes (e.g. "Smith 2010, p. 1." or" Smith (2010), p. 1."), with the full bibliographic details going in the References section. What does everyone else think? — AustralianRupert (talk) 00:27, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I think that would be a good start. Anotherclown (talk) 01:24, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think I've fixed the issue with the citation style. If anyone objects, please revert. I wasn't able to verify the sources, however. Cheers. — AustralianRupert (talk) 23:10, 19 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: also I feel that there are a few grammatical/tense issues in the article. I've tried to fix a few as I found them, but if someone else is keen to do some copy edit work that would be appreciated. Cheers. — AustralianRupert (talk) 01:42, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Commments This article unfortunately no longer meets the FA criteria. My comments are:
    • Referencing is inadequate. The use of 'ibid' is totally unacceptable as there's no way of knowing whether edits made after such references were added mean that this term still refers to the preceding reference - material sourced with 'ibid' may as well be unsourced given that WP:V isn't met
    • The claim that "Before the Nazi rise to power, German policy in China had been contradictory" and after this it was better directed seems a bit dubious given that the Nazi doctrine of racial superiority meant that doing business with 'inferior' races like the Chinese was also contradictory
    • I have some serious concerns about the neutrality of the article - it appears to be pretty sympathetic to Germany and I suspect that it greatly exaggerates the importance of German assistance to China. For instance, it is claimed that "However, a series of Sino-German agreements in 1934–1936 greatly accelerated railway construction in China." but how this translated into railroad construction is never explained. The implication that advice from Germans and German-designed weapons were critical in China holding off the Japanese also seems exaggerated. In the rare instances where the article gives concrete figures for the extent of German support they're typically rather modest.
    • It is notable that the article doesn't discuss China's relations with other western countries - for instance, support from the United States was also important during this period, and grew rapidly as the Pacific War approached. This needs to be covered to provide context to the assistance received from Germany.
    • The article is littered with untranslated German terms which could be replaced with English terms with no loss of meaning - eg, what's the Denkschrift für Marschall Chiang Kai-shek, and why is 'Hitlerjugend' used instead of the more common English language term 'Hitler Youth'?
    • The discussion of German-Chinese relations after the outbreak of World War II fails to mention that the naval blockade of Germany and the Japanese capture of most of China's main ports meant that there was no longer any prospect of trade between the countries.
    • The article has too many images
    • The lead is too short
    • While the article is reasonably well written, it needs a copy edit. Nick-D (talk) 10:46, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary[edit]

Featured article criterion of concern are images, citations, neutrality, comprehensiveness, prose, MOS. YellowMonkey (vote in the Southern Stars and White Ferns supermodel photo poll) 00:28, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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