Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Peer review/Battle between HMAS Sydney and German auxiliary cruiser Kormoran

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Battle between HMAS Sydney and German auxiliary cruiser Kormoran[edit]

About a month ago, I uploaded a massive expansion to this article (as well as the articles on HMAS Sydney (D48) and German auxiliary cruiser Kormoran - the ships involved). I am hoping to take this article to FA status, and would like the help of some fresh eyes to find any factual or stylistic errors before the article starts its climb through the ranks.

I request permission to intersperse my replies with your comments... if you wish for my replies to be kept separate, please specify. -- saberwyn 23:11, 17 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ranger Steve[edit]

I'll have a read later on. Just one quick observation though - there's a red link to an image in the background section. Ranger Steve (talk) 08:17, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I broke that when I was fixing the ndashes in the refs and changed a hyphen in the file to a ndash. Fixed. Also, the formatting of the referencing is now cleaned up, hopefully I didn't miss anything. There were a few places where the italics weren't turned off and the pages were italicised as well as the book title, so that could do with another check. The article is also very, very long, and the forking might be made more vigorous. YellowMonkey (bananabucket) (Invincibles finally at Featured topic candidates) 13:52, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Question for YellowMonkey. Is there anywhere clarifying that all citations for multiple pages should be "pp."? I've been taught to distinguish between consecutive and non-consecutive page ranges by using pp. and pgs. -- saberwyn 04:58, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Secondly, do you have any particular candidates for trimming down and/or forking out. There are a series of subarticles (see Template:Sydney-Kormoran) that would be potential targets. -- saberwyn 04:58, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Had a good read now (sorry it took so long, Christmas and all that). Firstly congratulations on the expansion - the article is excellent and you've done a great job adding so much info and detail to it. I think you should be angling for an FA in future. A few points:

  • Is it worth mentioning that this was Australia's greatest single loss in the lead?
    • Done
  • The "ships" section might benefit from having sub headings for Sydney and Kormoran. Or, you could go the whole hog and delete the ships section, add subheadings to the background section and move all the ships details under those subheadings along with their past actions.
    • Crudely done. I'll finesse it over the next few days.
      • Looks good already
  • There is significantly more detail on the various salvoes fired by the Kormoran compared to the Sydney. I expect the reason is the obvious, but I just wondered if there was any more detail that could be added to it to balance the section a little bit more?
    • There is very little detail on the few shots fired by Sydney, and a lot of it is vague or uncertain, mainly because those on Kormoran were too busy maintaining the pressure to pay attention to where the limited return fire came from and its effect. That said, I'll see what I can find... worst case scenario: I strip the info on Kormorans shots back a little to balance.
      • I'd actually recommend noting what you've said above rather than stripping info, if a ref exists for it.
        • I'm not sure I'll find a blatant citation for that...its just my impression from reading the various sources. Eyes will be kept open, though. -- saberwyn 21:00, 5 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • This might be nothing but thought I'd check - In the 4th paragraph of "Analysis: Histiography" the quote reads "reasonable and persuasive... [h]owever, she tried too hard to defend the crew of the Kormoran... at the expense of Sydney". What is the "h" substituting? I just can't think of another word that uses "owever", and wondered if the bracket should be around the entire word instead of just one letter.

Other than that I think it's excellent! Ranger Steve (talk) 18:25, 5 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    • Capital "H"
      • Aha!
    • Thanks for your comments. FA is the eventual destination intended for the article. -- saberwyn 20:38, 5 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

XavierGreen[edit]

The current name does not conform to precendents. I took the liberty of changing it, but i probably should have discussed it on the talk page first. We have dozens of Good Articles, A-class articles, and featured articles titled as Action of (insert date) for battles that do not have established names such as this one does. There are no Good Articles for single ship actions using the title that had previously existed on the article.XavierGreen (talk) 04:37, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Discussion would have been nice, because the article has undergone several without-warning name changes (accompanied by equally-without-warning reverts) since the 2008 rediscovery (see [1] [2]). However, if the new title is what consensus is, I'll roll with it. -- saberwyn 04:58, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The current review and all the infrastructure associated with it will also need to be re-titled if this new name is also retained. Once that has been determined, please let a coordinator know. -MBK004 05:04, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Personally I preferred the old title, which described this action far better. Admittedly there isn't a clear name for the engagement, but given the common references to the event in the media (using the ships names), I'd have said using the ships names is a better idea. As a common courtesy I'd have at least discussed this first, especially as the editor who has done the most to the article just opened this peer review to discuss such changes. Ranger Steve (talk) 17:32, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
There is a discussion underway on the article's talk page. Could any comments regarding the article's name be directed there? Thanks. -- saberwyn 20:32, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

MBK004[edit]

This is one of the better articles that I have seen come up for a peer review in quite some time, so you deserve credit for doing an excellent job. It is my opinion that you should go ahead and nominate for GA and/or A-Class. I believe that any issues that may arise in those reviews would not be time-prohibitive to cause a nomination to not succeed. -MBK004 03:17, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'll leave the peer review open for another week or so (in case anyone has any comments or observations they wish to make), and will nominate this for A and/or GA class in the new year. -- saberwyn 12:16, 26 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Saberwyn: closing[edit]

Thanks to all for commenting. I'm closing the peer review, but I won't be taking this (or the articles on the two ships) to A-class or FA until the various discussions about what the article should be called come to a resolution. Could any further comments or suggestions for improving the article be taken to the article's talk page? Again, thanks! -- saberwyn 07:20, 10 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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