Talk:Fall of Mosul

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Fall of Mosul/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Parsecboy (talk · contribs) 19:30, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

GA review (see here for criteria)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS):

   Some grammar issues, for example:

   ...refers to blitz takeover of the city... - I'd also get rid of "blitz" - it's amateuristic in tone.

   Beside plans of reorganizing the military also arose, where there would be collaboration "between tribal leaders and the US military - there's something missing here, and I can't exactly tell what you mean to say.

   I'd rewrite the first couple of sentences to make clear that ISIS/ISIL captured the city

   The article uses both ISIL and ISIS - should be standardized to one or the other.

   Several duplicate links throughout the article - in general, terms should be linked on the first use and then not again. There's a script you can install to help you find them, in case you aren't aware of it.

   There seems to be extensive use of quotations when paraphrasing would be a better option - I'd rewrite just about all of them, excepting the quotations in the reactions section.

   I'd cut a lot of the links in the see also section - most of these are linked in the article or the two navigation templates.

   Check for WP:ENGVAR issues - I see "defence" and "neighbourhood" but also "neighboring" and "Armored"

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

Parsecboy Hi, I have addressed the issues raised. RRD13 দেবজ্যোতি (talk) 09:37, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

There are some more issues, most of which were introduced in your recent changes - for instance, you changed the quoted line "death might avert an attack" to "death might provoke an attack". There are two problems with that change, the first being it changed the meaning to the direct opposite, and the second is that it's too closely paraphrased from the original text. Anything that was directly quoted from an article and now is no longer quoted needs to be completely rewritten with different words and sentence structure to avoid plagiarism problems.

There are also some issues with clarity: the line you rewrote to "hanged the soldiers and lit some of them" - I'd say "lit some of them on fire" for clarity. Also, this line: "though there were 2,500" - 2,500 what? Iraqi Army soldiers? Police?

Still problems with WP:ENGVAR that need to be addressed - the article should use one variety of English. Parsecboy (talk) 12:16, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

Parsecboy Hi, I have made the required edits. As of the English variety, I have changed the dates to the format accepted in British English. Please let me know if anymore of this problem persist. RRD13 দেবজ্যোতি (talk) 13:42, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

Yes, the English issue is still there. The article has "neighboring", which is the American spelling, and also "neighbourhood", which is the British spelling. I checked the initial version of the article, and it seems to only have American spellings, so the article should be standardized to American per WP:RETAIN. Parsecboy (talk) 11:57, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

There are also still issues with close paraphrasing. See for instance this line from this article:

"On 4 June, the police under Lieutenant General Mahdi Gharawi's command cornered the ISIL military leader Abu Abdulrahman al-Bilawi in Iraq."

Compared to the line from the source:

"On June 4, federal police in Mosul under Gharawi's command cornered Islamic State's military leader in Iraq, who blew himself up rather than surrendering"

You have to fundamentally rewrite the sentence so it has a different structure and word choices than the original. I haven't gone through the rest of the article, but I expect the same problem continues throughout. We've also gotten further from the correct meaning on the issue with al-Bilawi I mentioned above - now you have it written as though he blew himself up to prevent an ISIL attack on Mosul.

I think the best course of action at this point is to stop the GA review, as we're at a week now already, so you'll have time to work on these issues. You might also consider getting a peer review before coming back to GA. Parsecboy (talk) 12:16, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

Parsecboy, I have just completed a GOCE copy edit at the request of RRD13 দেবজ্যোতি. If you wish to reevaluate the prose issue, given that it passed all of the aspects of the review, it should be GA quality. Hampton11235 (talk) 16:39, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

What the heck is that image on the frontpage? Turquoise sky?

It looks like the most photoshopped thing ever, Im fairly confident I saw that very picture but with a normal blue sky earlier back when this happened. Parts of the sky are literally cropping into the vehicle and lampposts. Can´t we find a better one?83.252.116.25 (talk) 13:50, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

Level of planning

I don't feel like editing the article when it involves what some editors might call speculation or "original research", and revert the changes.

"al-Bilawi blew himself up as if he thought that it would prevent an attack." The referenced article clearly says that it was General Gharawi who hoped it would prevent an attack.

"ISIL commander Abu Abdulrahman al-Bilawi was killed near Mosul that day." The source: "He was killed on 5th June 2014 in Mosul." This was a day before the attack. The source for the previous quote says he was killed on 4 June.

Now for the speculative bit. The first source says that "In late May, Iraqi security forces arrested seven members of militant group Islamic State in Mosul and learned the group planned an offensive on the city in early June." This is the first I have seen that indicates this attack was planned significantly in advance, though this quote (written by a reporter who apparently interviewed Gharawi, so two possible sources of errors) does not say how large the planned attack was. Despite this information, the same article says that on 6 June, checkpoints still only had two soldiers each.

The article about the IS's finances in 2014, which reviewed information gained from the analysis of al-Bilawi's documents like USB thumb drives by the Iraqi government, implied that he was found because a senior member of the IS (formerly ISIS) finally cracked after a month of "interrogation", possibly meaning torture. It also said that after he revealed information, this person said "you don't know what you've done, Mosul will be an inferno next week". This implied that the actions the Iraqi government took as a result of obtaining information were somehow responsible, and necessary, for events in Mosul.

As mentioned in the source for the second quote above, the IS termed the operation, or possibly certain parts of the operation, "Bilawi Vengeance". This phrase or caption was used on the pictures of the ~1700 members of the Iraqi military (air force recruits) who were killed by the IS, several days after Mosul and nearby areas were captured.

So, was an operation of this magnitude planned before al-Bilawi was killed? 2601:600:8500:B2D9:E8F5:E27A:C82E:376E (talk) 15:14, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

Contradiction about al-Bilawi's Death

The article states that he both killed himself by blowing himself up and that he was killed. The source for the first does not use a name and refers to "Islamic State's military leader" blowing himself up on the 4th of June. The source for the second uses his name explicitly and says he was killed on the 5th. Could the first be referring to a different individual? Or perhaps our sources contradict each other? In the later case we should either mention the contradiction or look for additional sources. Sjrct (talk) 02:42, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

500 or 1,500 Jihadists?

In 2015-10-26 Al Jazeera quoted Martin Chulov as saying, "5 to 600 ISIL forces drove their drove their trucks into the city of Mosul. Six divisions of the Iraqi army, roughly 120,000 men, melted like the snow", per "Enemy of Enemies: The Rise of ISIL. Chapter 5. 2009-2015: Syria uprising and ISIL in Syria". Al Jazeera Arabic. 26 October 2015. Wikidata Q113710863..

Is the source cited in this article for 1,500 ISIL forces any more credible than this report from Al Jazeera?

Thanks, DavidMCEddy (talk) 22:52, 4 September 2022 (UTC)