Talk:Battle for The Hague/GA1

GA Review

There are several major issues with this article, enough to convince me to fail this nomination for GA based on this version that I started writing this review for.

Although the article is over-relying on a single source, this can be ignored as there is no specification in Wikipedia on the number of sources used as long as they are reliable. It does, however, felt weird to me that the article is relying on a review of a reliable source by the Greb Foundation. There is no proof that the Foundation (made up of self-acclaimed experts in Dutch military history) are experts or that the review is in any way an accurate representation of the book's contents. It would be best if the research is directly sourced from the book concerned i.e. The Battle for the Hague 1940 by Lieutenant Colonel E.H. Brongers, ISBN 90-5911-307-1.

The most worrying is the copy violations as raised in Talk:Battle for The Hague#Pre-GA Comments. The structure of the article is close to its source, starting off even with the same context.

Source: "The attack would be carried out as follows. First, the combat aircraft would fly over The Netherlands "

Article: "The plan was not a complex one, and would be carried out this way. First, the combat aircraft would fly over The Netherlands towards Britian,"

The copy violations are blatant in the middle of the article.

Source: "At Ypenburg, the counterattack was initially led by ad hoc groups such as a few men from a training school, a platoon of Grenadiers, a military police detachment, ..."

Article: "At Ypenburg, the counter-attack was at first led by ad hoc groups such as a few men from a training school, a platoon of Grenadiers, a military police detachment, ..."

Even at the end.

Source: "According to Brongers, those losses had several ramifications:

- Some senior commanders began to question the viability of airborne attacks

- German airborne forces available for Operation Sea Lion were greatly reduced

- Shortage of transport aircraft hampered later planning and operations

- In particular, the shortage of transports during the invasion of Crete meant paratroopers had to be landed in waves instead of all at once, contributing to heavy casualties on the island"

Article: "The failure of the operation had a few effects on the German Military;

- Some senior commanders questioned the usefullness of airborne assults

- Germany lost many Airborne troops which caused a shortage for Operation Sea Lion

- Shortage of transport aircraft also hampered later planning and operations

- During the Invasion of Crete, Germany was forced to change it's strategy on how to use airborne troops which resulted in heavy casualties"

Little tweaks and replacement of words with synonyms do not mask a copy and paste job.

Even if we ignore the copy violation, the prose requires a lot of work. The opening statement itself is too fanciful and vague: "The plan was not a complex one, and would be carried out this way." What plan? To do what? Whose plan? Looking on the statement on its own without context, why not "The plan is a simple one."

While there is a lead for the article, generally the start of the main text should ease readers into the topic and not throw them into guessing what is going on. The lead summarizes the article, but the main text should start off introducing and explaining things in general detail. The first section should preferably be a background section that explains why a battle for The Hague came to be.

If there are concerns that this failure should not be, please bring it up at WP:GAR. Otherwise, please rewrite the article and have it proofread, presenting it again at WP:GAC when it is ready. Jappalang (talk) 03:11, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Note: I noticed the article was updated while I was typing up the above, but this version still has much of the above concerns unaddressed. Jappalang (talk) 03:24, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm re-writing the article section by section now. The Battle for the Hague 1940, i s not avalible on google books, and I do not have a copy of one, otherwise I would use that as my primary source. Red4tribe (talk) 03:30, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

~ I wonder how Jappalang would asses the professionalism of E.H. Brongers as a historian ... Talking about self acclaimed historians ... A large portion of the sources used on wiki pages are self-acclaimed specialist, not the least the editors of many articles. By the way, this article was in much better shape when it was basically copy-pasted of War over Holland. At this point the article is incomplete, covering fractions of the Battle of the Hague only. The pictures are copyright infringements, particularly the one top right. Altogether a D minus ... Grebbegoos (talk) 00:47, 23 November 2009 (UTC)