Wikipedia:Peer review/Russo-Georgian war/archive2

Russo-Georgian war

Previous peer review

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because this article describes the event that was the first significant military crisis in Europe since the Balkan wars. I've mostly rewritten the article, condensed the very long sections, fact-checked with the sources and changed the formatting. The article is almost ready to be nominated for FA review, but any constructive comments will be welcome that will make it even better.

Thanks, UA Victory (talk) 15:49, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

I think commanders section in infobox could use some cleaning. Ranks and position titles should be removed. Also too many politicians, C-i-C + Defence Minister should be enough for politicians, so I would remove Gurgenidze, Lomaia, Merabishvili, Putin and Barankevich. Finally military commanders selection seems also messy, for example I have some doubts about Yamadayev being important enough to deserve a spot then 19th division commander is missing.--Staberinde (talk) 18:56, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

I removed the ranks. As for the politicians, I checked and except Gurgenidze, all of them took some part in the war. --UA Victory (talk) 07:40, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Not everyone who takes part automatically deserves a spot in infobox. Its purpose is to be short and informative, not include everyone involved. Template:Infobox military conflict: For wars, only prominent or notable leaders should be listed, with an upper limit of about seven per combatant column recommended. Currently Russian side has 14.--Staberinde (talk) 16:42, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

I removed Putin (not militarily involved) and Yamadayev (not major commander) from the commanders' list. Now there are 7 important Russian leaders listed. As for Abkhazian and South Ossetian commanders, they are regarded as separate combatants for the statistical purposes.--UA Victory (talk) 18:13, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

A few copyediting comments, not a complete review. (Note that I'm just copying text without the links here.) This is my imperfect understanding of what reviewers are looking for at FAC. - Dank (push to talk)

• "with Georgian, North Ossetian and Russian Joint peacekeeping force present": with a Georgian, North Ossetian and Russian joint peacekeeping force present
• "Increasing tensions escalated": Tensions escalated
• "as early as August 1, thus drawing": as early as August 1, drawing
• "during the night of 7 to 8 August 2008, in ": the night of 7 August in
• "August, in an attempt to reclaim the territory. ... Georgia successfully captured most of Tskhinvali within hours.": August, and recaptured most of Tskhinvali within hours.
• "It stated": Journalists generally avoid calling people "it" (even though that's the logical pronoun to substitute for "Georgia"). Who stated that?
• "Russia reacted": I acknowledge that "reacted" is commonly used on Wikipedia and elsewhere to describe how a conflict unfolded, and I'm not saying it's wrong here ... just be careful not to say "A did this, B reacted, A did that, B reacted", because that appears to assign all the blame to A (which is of course fine ... if all your sources assign all the blame to A).
• "Russian naval forces allegedly blockaded": "allegedly" is a tough word to use correctly, and it's probably not the best approach here. Given what the sources say, do you personally believe that they enforced a blockade? If so, you might simply remove "allegedly", or you might attribute the statement, if the statement is controversial (but probably true, as far as you can tell).
• "were able to enter uncontested Georgia and temporarily occupy the cities": temporarily occupied the Georgian cities
• "by the French presidency of the European Union": by the President of the European Union (or: by X, President of the European Union)
• "mostly completed pulling most of its troops out of uncontested Georgia.": pulled most of its troops out of Georgia. (or: ... out of Georgia proper.)
• "to be occupied by Russian military.": to be occupied by Russia.
• I got down to the end of the lead section. I don't know since I haven't read past that point, but this probably isn't ready for FAC. - Dank (push to talk) 02:00, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

I did correct everything you suggested. But you should take into consideration that when I was working on the article, I mostly paid attention to factual accuracy rather than just copy-editing. --UA Victory (talk) 07:40, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

And there's nothing wrong with that ... many writers do a better job when they don't think about copyediting. - Dank (push to talk) 13:14, 29 April 2014 (UTC)