Wikipedia:Featured article review/2nd Canadian Infantry Division/archive1

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was delisted by User:Nikkimaria 15:03, 6 January 2015 [1].

2nd Canadian Infantry Division[edit]

Notified: User:Cam, WikiProject Military history, Canadian Wikipedians' notice board
Thank you, DrKiernan, for doing the notifications! I was just coming to do that ... SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:22, 30 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Review section[edit]

Featured Article 2nd Canadian Infantry Division was merged (apparently after little discussion) with 2nd Canadian Division on 30 May 2013, and as a result fails on 2c at the very least. Discussion initiated on article talk page last year to either undo the merge or validate it and improve the current article has produced no consensus and the result remains well below FA standard. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 01:18, 30 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Ian, you may have a typo above (30 May 2013 ??)

I was having a hard time keeping up with the discussion of this article over at WT:FAC, and am just now seeing the links and discussion. I find this May 27, 2013 version, with indication of a merge on May 30, 2013. The version of May 27 does not look to me like an automatic demotion, I am not seeing a clear 2c deficiency, meaning the revert merge may have been incorrect and should be reverted (merging away a Featured Article should not happen outside of FAR).

More troubling is that I have yet to find any discussion of the original merge (where is it?). I don't see one on the original article talk page, and the merge discussion on the target page is from a different article (Talk:2nd_Canadian_Division#Merger proposal), and the discussion of the merge on that same page of this article is inconclusive. Unless someone can come up with something else, it looks like either a) the merge should be reverted, or b) we should get MilHist folks to evaluate whether May 27, 2013 version, just before the merge, is demotable.

If it's clearly and seriously deficient, I can understand dispensing with the bookkeeping of a FAR (considering a year and a half has elapsed) and demoting, but unless I'm missing something, that seems to be a bad precedent (demoting an article because of a faulty merge).

Whatever more knowledgeable MilHist folks think is fine, but if the FAR is to proceed, the listing needs to be reinstated at WP:FA and re-added to the tally; if the article is to be speedily demoted, that would be a first ... no problem, but as of now, this article is not listed at FA, so just to keep the books in sync before month-end, we have to go with either/or. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:58, 30 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

You see my dilemma, Sandy. This was why I initiated discussion with MilHist on whether the merge was reasonable or not. There was no consensus on that so I think we'd be better off demoting this. BTW, thought I just copied and pasted the merge date, corrected now. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 02:05, 30 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Where you got the merge date, I think, is because an IP added that date well after the fact to the talk page.[2] Where is the original merge discussion? Seriously, someone just merged away an FA and no one noticed. Kinda troubling, the whole thing, but it does look like the original article may not have been comprehensive (look at the World War I section on the new article, was it WWI or not??), so perhaps demotion is best. The main question here is, do we run a regular FAR, or speedy demote? You all know best, but take care with setting precedent. Nikkimaria, if you decide to run the FAR, then this article has to relisted at WP:FA and re-added to the tally. If you decide to speedy demote, it has already been removed from FA, but not sure if it has been list at WP:FFA ... just to keep the books straight before month-end tomorrow. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:14, 30 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
In my view, the next step would depend on whether this is going to stay merged. If it is, I would go for a procedural, immediate demotion. If it's going to be unmerged, we should conduct a full FAR. Alternatively, we could unmerge and then conduct a new merge discussion, either through the normal processes or as an FAR itself (compare Wikipedia:Featured_article_review/Meteorological_history_of_Tropical_Storm_Allison/archive1). In the interim, I've reinstated the FA listing, just until we've figured this out. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:30, 30 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Nikkimaria. Does the tally at FA need to be incremented, then? Still catching the plot, but I think we had the numbers in sync. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:33, 30 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
you're right, fixed now. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:52, 30 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict)I think that this needs a FAR as I can see inadequate sourcing (the Order of Battle, forex) and rather cursory coverage of the division's role in various battles. At 22K, the pre-merge article isn't overly large and, to my mind, the decisive vote for any merge is how the Canadian Army itself treats the history of the(se) division(s). If it treats them as two iterations of the same unit then we merge, if not then they're separate articles. As the Canadians haven't raised a division-sized unit since WW2 we'd probably need to see how they treat the history of the various infantry brigades that have been in service.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 02:40, 30 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

(another ec) This needs to be sorted by knowledgeable MilHist folks ... here is what the FAC nominator said on the FAC.

It is of no relation to the 2nd Canadian Division. In WWI, they didn't specify division type, whereas in WWII the 1st Canadian Army fielded both infantry and armour divisions. As for the divisional artillery and such, there was no specified organization for each division in the early days of the war; they simply relied on an overarching corps artillery and engineers that were not attached to the actual division. Hope that answers your question. Cam (Chat) 06:03, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:44, 30 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Noting Sandy's comments above, this article is clearly not of featured status. In the event that the World War I and World War II units of this name are considered separate by historians, military lineage experts, etc, the article is fundamentally mistaken. If the units are the same, the coverage of the division's World War I service is woefully inadequate. The "Present day" section is also obviously not even close to the standard required for FAs. Overall, I agree with Nikkimaria's view that the article should be delisted immediately if it remains in its current form. Nick-D (talk) 10:24, 30 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Nick-D, are you looking at the current article (which was a merge without discussion) or the old article (which is FA)? This is the FA that was merged with no discussion, to the new mess. Based on the comment from Cam, the original nominator, and this comment from an IP on talk, it looks like it may have been sound as a stand-alone article and the merge was incorrect (as well as undiscussed).

Considering that, I suggest we post-haste Revert merge and redirect, then proceed with FAR to evaluate soundness of the original article. I am concerned that people are looking at the new article, rather than the FA. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:20, 30 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

G'day, perhaps the solution is to take the article back to its pre-merged state and rename it something like "2nd Canadian Infantry Division during World War II" or something similar. That would mean that regardless of whether the claimed lineage is correct of not (there seems to be a lack of authoritive sourcing on this), the article would still be comprehensive and therefore most likely FA-worthy. Thoughts? AustralianRupert (talk) 19:15, 30 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds good to me, but I defer to those more knowledgeable on MilHist. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:37, 30 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Sandy, I was commenting on the article as it currently stands. Nick-D (talk) 05:28, 1 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
That is as I feared :) The merge to that article was based on zero discussion that I found, so could you have a look at the FA (that is the diff above of the FA before it was merged out of existence [3])? Both the original nominator and the IP give reasoning for a stand-alone article, although AustralianRupert's suggestion might also work. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:48, 1 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Stale discussion, and some comments based on a misunderstanding of which article we are reviewing. So, unless someone disagrees, I shall revert the undiscussed merge, so that this discussion and the WP:FA page are not pointing at a mess. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:19, 4 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

  • Reverted merge and redirect: [4] Could we please now get MilHist opinions on the FA before us? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:13, 5 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • I've taken a look through the article and had a few concerns about referencing and formatting. I've rectified what I could with these edits: [5]. I added a couple of refs to all I could find, but unfortunately they didn't always provide the full details (maybe someone has a book that covers these?). Where this is the case, I have noted in my edit summaries (mainly the table and the comment about the 12th Panzer Div). I am also slightly concerned about wording similarities between the article and this source: [6]. The Earwig tool is also concerned: [7] Although it could be a false positive (I'm not sure): the proper nouns of units/people etc. might be setting it off. Finally, I still believe that it would be optimal to rename this article to "2nd Canadian Infantry Division during the Second World War" or "2nd Canadian Infantry Division during World War II" (which ever variation is considered most common to Canadians). Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 20:05, 5 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • G'day, I did a bit more digging and I'm not sure whether this is a case of backwards copy or not. From what I can tell this was the Wikipedia article when it achieved Good Article status in August 2008: [8]. Web Archive appears to indicate that the Canadiansoldiers.com page came into existence in 2011 [9] (at least that is when it first "captured" the website). Is there any way of telling definitively which came first? Sorry, I think I've muddied the waters a bit. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 20:54, 15 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
        • From my digging in archive.org, pretty sure they copied us. AustralianRupert is this source helpful in replacing canadiansoldiers.com? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:12, 15 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
          • G'day, Sandy, thanks for that. I've downloaded a couple of the sources there and managed to add a couple of refs, but there are still a few areas that need references (after I removed the canadiansoldiers web citation). I found that some of the information is partially covered by the Stacey refs, but not totally, so I didn't add the reference in these places. I'm sorry, but I've spent about two hours on this today and I can't devote any more time to it now (in the middle of moving house and then going on Christmas holidays). Equally I don't have the subject matter knowledge. I'm sorry, but this may need to be demoted. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 23:13, 15 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Move to FARC. It's been two weeks. On the issue of similarities, compare for example:

In 1941, the Toronto Scottish Regiment was transferred from the 1st Division to become the machine-gun battalion of the 2nd Division. Around the same time, the 8th Reconnaissance Regiment (14th Canadian Hussars) was raised from 2nd Division personnel supplemented by reinforcements from Canada...
When the division was not engaged in coastal-defence duties or unit training, formation-level training took the form of increasingly larger exercises. Exercise Waterloo, conducted from 14–16 June 1941, was the largest in the United Kingdom to date, with I Canadian Corps counter-attacking an imagined German sea and air landing. Exercise Bumper, held from 29 September to 3 October, was larger still, involving 250,000 men. These exercises tended to concentrate on traffic control, communications, and logistical concerns, and were of little practical value to the infantry.
On 30 December 1941, the Calgary Highlanders introduced "battle drill" to the division. This new type of training emphasized small unit tactics as well as "hardening" training through use of live ammunition, slaughterhouse visits, and obstacle courses, and was adopted throughout Commonwealth forces stationed in Britain.

— Article

In 1941, the Toronto Scottish Regiment were moved from the 1st Canadian Division to become the Machine Gun battalion of the Second Division. As well, the 8th Reconnaissance Regiment (14th Canadian Hussars) was created from 2nd Division personnel and reinforcements from Canada...
When the division was not engaged in coastal defence duties or unit training, formation level training took the form of increasingly larger exercises. Exercise WATERLOO conducted 14-16 June 1941 would be the largest in the United Kingdom to date, with I Canadian Corps counter-attacking an imagined German sea and air landing. Exercise BUMPER from 29 September 1941 to 3 October 1941 was larger than WATERLOO, involving 250,000 men. These exercises tended to concentrate on traffic control, communications and logistical concerns and were of little practical value to the infantry.
On 30 December 1941, the Calgary Highlanders introduced "Battle Drill" to the Division. This new type of training emphasized small unit tactics as well as "hardening" training through use of live ammunition, slaughterhouse visits, and obstacle courses, and was adopted throughout the Army.

— Source given in the article: canadiansoldiers.com/organization/fieldforces/casf/2nddivision.htm
DrKiernan (talk) 10:59, 14 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
DrKiernanON the canadiansolders.com issue (raised by Australian Rupert), as far as I can tell, that's a backwards copy (we need to remove that source, which was inadvertently introduced by Rupert before he realized it was a Wikipedia mirror). Canadiansoldiers.com was archived at archive.org well before 2011, but that particular page does not show up til 2011, so likely they copied us. If you poke around in archive.org for the general page of canadiansoldiers.com, you find no indication of that specific page being there before 2011-- so, they copied us. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:06, 15 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I already looked at archive.org before I posted above. But canadiansoldiers.com is very sniffy about wikipedia: [10], so they do not seem likely to copy us; and they expressly claim copyright: [11]. DrKiernan (talk) 21:37, 15 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

More than two weeks-- Move to FARC. Regardless what is determined about canadiansoldiers.com (what makes that a reliable source?), this article needs to be !voted in or out. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:33, 15 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

FARC section[edit]

Once the issue of the merge was resolved, concerns raised in the review section mostly centred on coverage and referencing. Nikkimaria (talk) 15:48, 16 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist. Unfortunately, in the absence of the main author it is not possible to resolve the sources for the passage mentioned above, the material tagged in the article, and the other examples that can be seen through the Earwig link and by direct comparison between the article and canadiansoldiers.com. DrKiernan (talk) 18:05, 16 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist: Unfortunately, this doesn't meet the FA criteria at the moment. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 20:06, 16 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist: if MilHist editors aren't able to resolve the concerns, we have little choice. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:17, 20 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Yes, we've had several MilHist eyes on this, but unfortunately the level of expertise re. the Canadian military is not the same as it is for say the Australian or US... Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 07:17, 5 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist, does not meet FA criteria. --Laser brain (talk) 15:55, 4 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist appears to have serious issues that cannot be resolved nor are there any efforts towards resolving them. Ealdgyth - Talk 14:40, 5 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Closing note: This removal candidate has been delisted, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please leave the {{featured article review}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. Nikkimaria (talk) 20:02, 6 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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