Template:Did you know nominations/Operation Raindance

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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 Allen3 talk 11:39, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Operation Raindance[edit]

  • ... that Raindance was followed by a Stranglehold?
  • ALT1:... that Operation Raindance was followed by a Stranglehold?
  • Reviewed: Alvin "Shipwreck" Kelly
  • Comment: Operation Raindance was a unique military operation of the Laotian Civil War. Begun on 17 March 1969, it was a U.S. Air Force tactical interdiction air campaign doubling as flying artillery blasting its way across the Plain of Jars in the Kingdom of Laos. Three battalions of Central Intelligence Agency-backed guerrillas swept through post-bombing. Officially ended on 7 April, Raindance lasted in succeeding iterations throughout May 1969. It was a spectacular short term success, trumped by an unprecedented counter by the communists.

Created by Georgejdorner (talk). Self nominated at 08:18, 22 December 2014 (UTC).

  • @Georgejdorner: QPQ review for Alvin "Shipwreck" Kelly is being used for the Campaign Thoan Thang nom. Please find a replacement. Fuebaey (talk) 11:50, 26 December 2014 (UTC)
  • New, long enough, and cites sources. Statements like: "It was a spectacular success from the start," cast doubts about its neutrality. Otherwise I guess it's as neutral as it can be given that it only cites sources written from the perspective of the US military. I cannot check paraphrasing due to offline sources. I'm not a fan of the hooks since neither tell me enough about what I'm clicking on. If anything, ALT1 may be fine. Most importantly—once again—the QPQ is already used at another nomination: Template:Did you know nominations/Ban Naden raid. Please do another QPQ review and stop trying to use them for more than one nomination. – Maky « talk » 23:16, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
  • Thank you for catching the word "spectacular"; although in the source, it is "peacocking". It is also history, as I deleted it.
  • I should dearly love to have sources written from the Vietnamese, Lao, or Thai point of view. I have gone to the trouble of acquiring declassified U.S. documents about the subject. However, I hold no brief for the American side; I do portray its ultimate defeat in this operation. The best I can do is be as evenhanded as possible using extant sources. If lack of Vietnamese sources is a bar to a WP article, there should be a mass deletion of most articles associated with the Vietnam War, as they are often written from similar sourcing.
  • Lastly, please do not assume bad faith in my confused errors in listing QPQs. I have been keeping QPQ reviews on my watchlist until I use them for one of my DYK noms. Given that I have three or four reviews on the list along with eight or twelve DYK noms, it was easy to confuse matters. I say was, because I am switching to reviewing only after I have a DYK nom, just to avoid this sort of harassment. In that vein, let me submit a QPQ completed within the previous hour, Template:Did you know nominations/St. Elmo (1914 film).Georgejdorner (talk) 18:32, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
Thanks for clearing up the neutrality issue. My comment about one-side accounts was not a reason to oppose this nomination. I was just stating the obvious lack of neutrality in any historical account of warfare. In other words, now that the offending sentence has been fixed, the article is probably as neutral as it's going to get. Also, sorry for any bad faith on the QPQ—review processes on Wikipedia are making me grow cynical. Anyway, neutrality and QPQ are now good. Again, I'm not hot about the hooks, but others may find them acceptable. I'll let the people overseeing DYK make that call. – Maky « talk » 20:46, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
Your cynicism has grounds. I have seen a drive-by comment accepted as a QPQ by another reviewing editor after I refused to accept it. At the same time, I have been accused of faking QPQs (partly but not entirely due to above confusion). I try to shrug it off as the standard "Let's bug the rookie" greeting that goes along with being new to any niche in WP. I only supply QPQs in which I have evaluated everything; sometimes I put a lot of effort into a review, only to "lose" it because of changes needed in the nomination that I cannot approve.Georgejdorner (talk) 16:54, 11 January 2015 (UTC)