Talk:Suwałki Gap
Suwałki Gap has been listed as one of the Warfare good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it. Review: November 18, 2022. (Reviewed version). |
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A fact from Suwałki Gap appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 19 June 2022 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
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Did you know nomination[edit]
- The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.
The result was: promoted by SL93 (talk) 20:07, 13 June 2022 (UTC)
- ... that the only power line, railway line, gas pipeline and only two main roads from the Baltic states to the rest of EU and NATO pass through the Suwałki Gap? For power line, railway line and two main roads,[1] gas pipeline[2]
- ALT1: ... that the Suwałki Gap is often described as the modern version of the Cold War-era Fulda Gap, a NATO vulnerability of historical importance? Source: [3][4][5][6]
- ALT2: ... that in the event of a Russia-NATO war, the occupation of a 65 km (40 mi)-long strip of land by the former is enough to cut the Baltic states from the rest of NATO and the European Union? Source: Basically the whole point of why it's called a gap; see [1]
- ALT3: ... that one of the coldest areas in Poland may actually be one of the hottest in NATO? Coldest: see Polityka article (it's literally one of the coldest areas), hottest: as in hot spot, the one with most activity: [2]
- Reviewed: User:Szmenderowiecki/Sort_of_recognised_contributions#DYK_reviews
Moved to mainspace by Szmenderowiecki (talk). Self-nominated at 13:53, 29 April 2022 (UTC).
- Comment, not review: Szmenderowiecki, to help the reviewer, please could you add a reliable source or sources for each hook, especially for the "hottest" part of ALT3? TSventon (talk) 14:18, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
- I'm now listening to proceedings of a conference related to the topic, once I'm done (should be by tomorrow morning), I'll post everything as proposed. So far the indications of where the sources lie are given. The "hottest" part is more in the meaning of a "hot spot". Szmenderowiecki (talk) 16:20, 3 May 2022 (UTC)
- All good (size, refs, neutrality, date, etc.). The only minor concern is regardng the tone of ALT3. As the nom admits: " a bit trollish, but I would prefer this one, 'cause it's catchy". I concur it is catchy, but I have concerns it is too catchy to be encyclopedic (reminds of the "old" days of the Wikipedia were such tone was allowed, however). Which hook to use, I'll leave to the DYK admins. Well done! --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 09:46, 13 June 2022 (UTC)
References
- ^ Lesiecki, Rafał (2022-04-01). "Przesmyk suwalski. Dlaczego jest tak ważny dla NATO". TVN24 (in Polish). Archived from the original on 16 April 2022. Retrieved 2022-04-16.
- ^ "Gas from Lithuania flowing into Poland from May 2, climate minister says". The First News. 2022-05-02. Retrieved 2022-05-02.
- ^ Howard, Glen (2017). "Baltic security in the age of Trump". Security in the Baltic Sea region: realities and prospects : the Rīga Conference papers 2017. Andris Sprūds, Māris Andžāns. Riga: Latvian Institute of International Affairs. p. 111. ISBN 978-9934-567-10-0. OCLC 1005143446. Archived from the original on 2 May 2022. Retrieved 2 April 2022.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: date and year (link) - ^ McLeary, Paul (2015-10-01). "Is NATO's New Fulda Gap in Poland?". Atlantic Council. Archived from the original on 2 April 2022. Retrieved 2022-04-01.
- ^ "If Russia ever acts against NATO, US soldiers at Suwalki Gap may be first to fight back". Stars and Stripes. 2021-05-18. Archived from the original on 2021-05-18. Retrieved 2022-03-30.
- ^ McLeary, Paul. "Meet the New Fulda Gap". Foreign Policy. Archived from the original on 2 April 2022. Retrieved 2022-03-30.
I'm on mobile, so I won't be able to readily reply to the comments, but I hope to address the concerns shortly. Many thanks, Szmenderowiecki (talk) 13:10, 30 October 2022 (UTC)
Baseless assertion[edit]
the baseless assertion "Russia launched the war in the Donbass" contributes to the highly degraded credibility of this website. It hardly matters whether it's fixed or not, the well-deserved reputation as a western propaganda outlet will remain. 73.240.144.28 (talk) 03:56, 22 June 2022 (UTC)
- Please present your case at the article War in Donbas, with sourcing if you don't want to be dismissed out-of-hand, as for now, that article is fairly clear about who started what and with whose aid. Also, I've read the Russian-language articles on the topic but they were so full of Russian propaganda (e.g. that attacking a foreign country is in "self-defence") - you wouldn't approve of such US messaging, would you - that I had to dismiss them for unreliability. A rather mild sample of that is given in "further reading", Zverev paper. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 09:28, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
- I tend to partially agree with 73.240.144.28. This article is by all means good and interesting (thank you for that!), but it's 2nd half is dominantly written with Westernly eyes. Being "scientific" means that *all aspects are considered equally and in a well balanced way*. Now it focuses heavily on the A (Nato) being attacked by B (Russia) -scenario, but the B being attacked by A -scenario is completely missing. Why? Phrases like "we all know", "it is given", "Nato is not offensive" (generic - not from this article in particular) and all that stuff are unfortunately very dominant inside most people's heads, but that's not science. I use to advise people to sit down on the moon and look down onto earth, and to travel i bit backwards and forwards in time, to see clearly. But that's unfortunately outside most people's mental capabilities, both in west and in east. The latter part of this article could well appear in an american thinktank magazine, but wikipedia should be more autonomous. However, a plus for the big effort put in! With kind regards from Finland. 85.76.148.10 (talk) 10:54, 8 July 2022 (UTC)
- Well, first of all, the Suwałki Gap is mostly a NATO concern given that it is NATO that has the choke point, not Russia concern, so obviously Western analysts write much more about it than Russian analysts, and therefore the sources available generally assume a Russian attack on the gap. This is also what the Russian sources I have seen also assume (Zapad 2017, Zapad 2021...), and when they don't do that, they simply speak of the corridor as "hypothetical", without much details (see doi 10.5922/2079-8555-2022-2-3).
- The scenario you are speaking of is NATO attacking Kaliningrad Oblast and/or Belarus. The problem is, even in the Russian literature, I wasn't able to see any plans for defence of either region against an invading NATO force in the context of the Suwałki Gap. The only one I know of is Hunzeker and Lanoszka (Western analysts), who openly say that during an invasion, NATO forces should not be limited to Suwałki, but then it assumes a Russian invasion. In short, I'm afraid there is simply nothing available from what you say. I could have missed something, though, so if you have anything you know of, please propose it. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 23:15, 12 July 2022 (UTC)
- Szmenderowiecki, it is true that the availability of sources is not well balanced, and that is unfortunate. I am afraid I cannot provide any good additional sources either, and as I said, the article is written with great care and detail! It is unfortunate that the lack of scientific studies from *both* points of view (west, east) makes it hard to not emphasize the *one* point of view. What I really would like to see is a structure that holds the identical headers (eg. "strategy" or "strategical importance") from first the A party's point of view, then (fully independently) from B party's point of view - both as seen solely with respective party's eyes! This is a widespread problem in the Eng Wikipedia, hence I used the phrase "Westernly eyes". Headers "Strategical importance for Nato" (potentially with subheader "Defence" etc) AND "Strategical importance for Russia" (with suitable subheaders) might provide a more solid grip? In general, I might also be somewhat critical to using the current Ukraine situation in wikipedia, as it easily becomes a sledge hammer, and is after all only about a short time in history while wikipedia should (imho) be less now-dependant. Best from Finland! 85.76.100.116 (talk) 15:04, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
GA Review[edit]
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Reviewing |
- This review is transcluded from Talk:Suwałki Gap/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.
Reviewer: OliveYouBean (talk · contribs) 05:01, 30 October 2022 (UTC)
G'day! This looks like a really interesting topic so I'm gonna have a go at reviewing the article. Given the length it could take me a while to go through the whole thing and take notes, but hopefully it won't be too long. OliveYouBean (talk) 05:01, 30 October 2022 (UTC)
Rate | Attribute | Review Comment |
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1. Well-written: | ||
1a. the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct. |
Lead: All good :) Background: All good :)
Civilian interest: All good :)
Military considerations: All good :)
This section (particularly when listing current units in the area) does get a little bit technical. The wikilinks help enough that I don't think it needs any changes, but that's something to watch in future since it will probably need to be updated at some point. In fiction: All good :) | |
1b. it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation. |
MOS:LEAD: All good :)
MOS:LAYOUT: All good :)
Not sure if this really applies here since only one short section deals with fiction, but nonetheless there's nothing wrong with that section :) All good :) | |
2. Verifiable with no original research: | ||
2a. it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline. | All good :) | |
2b. reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose). | I'm having a bit of difficulty with this because a lot of the sources are in non-English languages, so it may take a while for me to finish this part of the review. Just some notes on the English sources though:
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2c. it contains no original research. | As far as I can tell, this is all good :) | |
2d. it contains no copyright violations or plagiarism. | ||
3. Broad in its coverage: | ||
3a. it addresses the main aspects of the topic. | All good. :) | |
3b. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style). | ||
4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each. | I'm satisfied that the article is neutral. The text does a good job of staying focused on the objective facts and attributing anything outside of that to its source so that it's not speaking in Wikipedia's voice. I noticed there was a conversation a few months back on the talk page about the article's neutrality, but I disagree with the IP editors there. If the reliable sources (from both Russian and NATO perspectives) are exclusively focused on military strategy in the event of a Russian attack, then that's all the article can focus on. Within that, the article does a good job of presenting the various viewpoints that exist from both sides. | |
5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute. | Article is stable. | |
6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio: | ||
6a. media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content. | All good :) | |
6b. media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions. | Very good choice for the first image, and all the images are relevant to the article. | |
7. Overall assessment. |
For now I've just got notes on the first couple of criteria. Nothing I'm saying is like "100% you must change this", so if you disagree with anything I'm saying feel free to tell me why. OliveYouBean (talk) 10:34, 30 October 2022 (UTC)
- I still don't have access to my computer, so I'll try to go from the last point to the first. I still hope to introduce the change shortly, but 2017 wikitext editor works poorly on mobile, while disabling it leaves me with a less comfortable solution to introducing templates/refs
- 6. Images: I will introduce the last sentence of the image #2 in the text of the lead; I don't think the last sentence of the tripoint caption needs moving because it describes the image itself.
- 3b. This has to do with the fact that in a military standoff like this one, the number and equipment of the units help determine how serious NATO/Russia are about that choke point. It might be a bit on the long side, but then I try to be as comprehensive as I can reasonably be without being excessively detailed. I looked up A-class and FA-class MILHIST articles for guidance.
- One thing that should be done is updating that assessment of man- and firepower, because surely something has changed after 8 months of the war in Ukraine.
- 2b. I know I made use of several non-English sources; take your time to assess them.
- globalsecurity.org had several RSN and MILHIST discussions but I can't make much of them. At least the articles I saw made sense, but I will dig deeper.
- Will look for the CEPA paper link.
- Will make Guardian references uniform. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 15:25, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
- As for point 1, most of that is valid criticism, so I'll implement it. Anything I don't agree with will be mentioned in the edit summaries. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 15:27, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
- OliveYouBean, thank you for your thorough review, your points should be addressed. The only thing in 1a I did not change was the special military operation so that people reading the text understand what exactly the pollster was asking. In any case, the only thing that remains to be done is an update to the balance of forces. There hasn't been much news about that, unfortunately, and for obvious reasons, the Russians are secretive about what exactly is happening in their military, but I will try to find the newest reliable information. If not, I will leave that section alone. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 15:38, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
- Thanks for all your work! There's still a few of the non-English refs I'm looking at but should be done with that shortly. Once I've finished that, I'm happy to promote this to good article status. :) OliveYouBean (talk) 07:43, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
- OliveYouBean, thank you for your thorough review, your points should be addressed. The only thing in 1a I did not change was the special military operation so that people reading the text understand what exactly the pollster was asking. In any case, the only thing that remains to be done is an update to the balance of forces. There hasn't been much news about that, unfortunately, and for obvious reasons, the Russians are secretive about what exactly is happening in their military, but I will try to find the newest reliable information. If not, I will leave that section alone. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 15:38, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
- As for point 1, most of that is valid criticism, so I'll implement it. Anything I don't agree with will be mentioned in the edit summaries. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 15:27, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
@Szmenderowiecki: my only concern is the use of a source from the Ministry of Defence of Russia to talk about NATO troop placements. It's referenced right at the beginning of the section, and as far as I can tell everything else in the body is referenced somewhere else so I'm not really sure why it's there. Is there information in that section which comes from that source?
Every other source that I could consider as being "biased" though seems to be used in an appropriate way (things attributed to the source rather than being written in Wikipedia's voice). So once you've answered the question about the Ministry of Defence source I'm happy to promote the article! OliveYouBean (talk) 08:02, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
- Good catch. I did initially use it, but now that source seems redundant.
- I will double-check if the article is up-to-date before it receives the GA status. I'll ping you when I'm ready. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 09:28, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
- Okie dokie. Again really good work on this article, it was a pleasure to read and review it. :) OliveYouBean (talk) 09:30, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
- OliveYouBean, I double-checked everything and the article as presented has the most up-to-date information I could find. I think I'm ready, please double check the article for any mistakes or doubts. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 19:19, 17 November 2022 (UTC)
- @Szmenderowiecki: I've done one last check through, everything seems good to me so I'm going to promote it. :) OliveYouBean (talk) 00:38, 18 November 2022 (UTC)
- OliveYouBean, I double-checked everything and the article as presented has the most up-to-date information I could find. I think I'm ready, please double check the article for any mistakes or doubts. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 19:19, 17 November 2022 (UTC)
- Okie dokie. Again really good work on this article, it was a pleasure to read and review it. :) OliveYouBean (talk) 09:30, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
Map of Europe with NATO and CSTO[edit]
While I can clearly see the boundaries of western countries including NATO members in blue, it is almost impossible to see the boundaries of CSTO members in yellow. Is it possible to have a different color scheme? 104.175.74.27 (talk) 06:28, 10 May 2023 (UTC)
- You are free to devise another one. This colour scheme was chosen because NATO's flag is blue and CSTO... well, it's also blue but we already have it, so the next largest colour component was yellow. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 20:36, 19 April 2024 (UTC)
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