Wikipedia:Peer review/Romanian Navy during World War II/archive1

Romanian Navy during World War II

I've listed this article for peer review because this is my first article, and so far my most vast article. I am still rather new, barely been active for 2 weeks, so I would appreciate all the help and advice I can get.

Thanks, Brown Water Admiral (talk) 17:18, 30 August 2017 (UTC)

Comments Hi Brown Water Admiral, welcome. Here are some suggestions:

• Per WP:LEAD, an article of this length should have an introduction of 2-3 paragraphs
• I'm a bit confused by your infoboxes here: the first is for the Black Sea Campaign, but the second says it is part of the Black Sea Campaign - so should we read this as the second is a subset of (and thus included in) the first? Based on the losses it doesn't seem so. I also note a sandwiching problem.
• I'd suggest providing a bit more background - you could borrow some from the Interwar period at Romanian Naval Forces
• Citations are generally lacking publisher info. You could opt to split them into short citations and a bibliography, or provide full citation details in footnotes, but either way the full details should be provided at some point. You may also want to include ISBNs. Nikkimaria (talk) 13:28, 2 September 2017 (UTC)
  • Nikkimaria Greetings and thankyou for your reply and suggestions. I've already adressed one of them, changing the second infobox from Black Sea Campaigns to Eastern Front of World War II. I will improve the lead and references later though, as it is a bit more of a work and currently I don't have the time for it. I checked out what sandwiching means, but let me ask, is it that much of a problem? I mentioned many warships in the article, I figured people would want to see, what are they reading about. Regards. Brown Water Admiral (talk) 11:46, 3 September 2017 (UTC)
    • People's settings with regards to image size vary, and on some screens there are only a couple of words between the images and infoboxes - this does make it quite difficult to read. Nikkimaria (talk) 12:43, 3 September 2017 (UTC)

Comments/suggestions: G'day, nice work. I have a few minor suggestions: AustralianRupert (talk) 03:58, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

• the web citations should include details such as author, publisher and accessdate (see Citations 2 or 36 as an example with these details, and Citation 10 and 53 as examples without). Be careful of MOS:ALLCAPS also;
• suggestion splitting the long paragraph in the Evacuation of the Crimea section;
• the "Conclusion" sub section should be referenced. I think a sentence could also be included her about what the naval forces did after the November 1942, for example, "After November 1942, Romanian naval forces returned to...";
• per Wikipedia:Proseline: be careful to vary the way you start sentences. Quite a few start with "On date..." ;
• I echo Nikki's concern about sandwiching images. I suggest removing a few. If you want, you could create a Commons category, and link that at the bottom of the article. For an example, see: Naval operations in the Dardanelles Campaign. AustralianRupert (talk) 03:58, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Comments/suggestions: Notwithstanding the observations below, it's a nice article. I enjoyed reading it. FactotEm (talk) 17:36, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

• Not sure that the two infoboxes add much to the article that can't be explained in the main narrative, and their removal would free up some of the image clutter. I would have thought the Romanian Naval Forces infobox would be more apt for this article, given that the article is more about the Navy, albeit in a specific timeframe, than about any specific actions. I also found it odd that the infobox is not placed in the lead.
• Your first wikilink Romanian Navy is to a redirect. The correct link is Romanian Naval Forces
• As for the image clutter, I'm not sure that images of soviet vessels add so much to the article that it offsets the clutter disadvantage.
• I'm also used to seeing short citations to printed works in the main narrative, with a list of book sources in the bibliography section, per WP:SFN. Yesterday's TFA Norwich_War_Memorial is a good example of this style in action. The advantage is that this method allows the reader to easily see the main printed sources used in the article, and whilst Wikipedia may have a dubious reputation in some quarters, its huge strength is in identifying sources where people can verify for themselves the salient issues on any given topic. Indeed, every time I've read advice from academic circles on how best to use Wikipedia, this has been cited as a key benefit.
• The language could be improved, but that's true of just about any article. I don't think it's terrible, but if you have any aspirations of taking this article up the quality scale it would benefit from a copyedit. As an example, the first section after the lead makes odd use of parentheses, which interrupt the flow, and might better be written:

"At the start of the War in September 1939, the Romanian Black Sea Fleet comprised four destroyers – the flotilla leaders Mărăști and Mărășești and two Regele Ferdinand-class destroyers – the minelaying/destroyer escort Amiral Murgescu, three 250t-class torpedo boats, three Vosper motor torpedo boats, four ex-French Friponne-class escort/patrol gunboats, the minelayer Aurora, the submarine tender Constanța and the submarine Delfinul."

• Note also that single digit numbers are spelled out in words per MOS:NUMERAL.