Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Armed Forces of Liberia/archive2

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The following discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
  • Not promoted - no consensus for promotion after being open for 28+ days -MBK004 07:11, 18 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Armed Forces of Liberia[edit]

Nominator(s): Buckshot06(prof)
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Prior A-class review: Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Armed Forces of Liberia/archive1

I am nominating this article for A-Class review because much has been incorporated and changed based on the recommendations of the previous A-Class review, and I'd like to see whether it's ready for A-class. Buckshot06(prof) 06:43, 16 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support Comments This is greatly improved from the last version submitted for an ACR (which was pretty good) and is very close to A class status. The article is very well written and is amazingly detailed - fantastic work. My suggestions for improvements are:
    • The history section is rather long (though very well written and wonderfully detailed). While I don't think that it should be split into a separate article (like Timor Leste Defence Force, it seems better to leave the material in the article on the military), I'd suggest that Military history of Liberia be created as a redirect to this article
    • The para which begins "It is not clear exactly when the armed forces' third arm, the Coast Guard, was established." needs to be cited. Nick-D (talk) 08:01, 16 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • Redirect created and paragraph cited and improved. Buckshot06(prof) 08:57, 16 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        • Great work, I've just changed my vote to support. Nick-D (talk) 21:48, 16 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support: I'm happy to support this for A-class. I believe it meets the criteria and the issues that were listed in the last ACR, plus the interim review on the talk page have been addressed. (One area that might be improved, but I feel has no baring on A class, is that a couple more images could be inserted—assuming that they are available, which could be a big assumption—to break up some of the larger paragraphs). Anyway, well done. — AustralianRupert (talk) 00:20, 17 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Most pictures of the AFL available are not GFDL-compliant, but I've found and added another recent US-taken photo. Buckshot06(prof) 06:03, 17 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Prose needs work.

  • I've recast the opening two sentences, which were repetitive, so that the text starts by reaching more into the topic, as it were. See if you like it. I've reversed a couple of sentences to try to make it flow better, too.

Here are random points at the top, which suggest an independent copy-edit is due. The prose is not too bad, but now would be a good time to spruce it.

  • Please avoid linking common entities such as "United States".
  • 1989–2003 with pauses: is this for the "First", "Second" or both LCWars?
  • Remove "also", since the "two infantry battalions" are not planned (the planned bit is slightly vague for the lead, isn't it? The extraordinary fact of a Nigerian Army officer's leadership is in the infobox but is unexplained in the lead.)
  • Cape Mesurado was a major settlement in the early 19th century? It kind of comes out of the blue.
  • The MoS says to use double quotes for "words as words" (able-bodied); and for quotations ... is this a quotation from ref. 2? You could get away without the quotes at all, probably. Needs an audit throughout for this.
  • "500 strong"—most American writers would hyphenate it. "highest-ranking" is after the noun, so less likely to be hyphenated—in fact, it wouldn't be here.
  • Under the command. Rule of thumb: when there's an "of" to the right put a "the" to the left.
  • "about" five is odd. Better to sweep the uncertainty under the carpet with "some five".
  • Is it in AmEng or BrEng? "reorganiSe".
  • Conscription is forced.
  • Comma after "interior".
  • "units often lived off the areas that they were pacifying, as a form of communal punishment"—I can see how some people might not see the neutrality in this statement. And it assumes that only one tribe occupied such an area. Perhaps "pacifying" is the problem; also, I hadn't understood there was a need to pacify. Can that role/need be explained first?

Tiny tiny images. The default size will be boosted from 180 to 220 in a few days' time, but even so, I'd force to 240 or 250.

  • "towards the end of the war" might be better.
  • Where's the numeral / spell out boundary? MoS suggests nine/10.
  • "high-status force: it was"
  • Ref list needs a check through for formatting and consistency. There's a reverse date format I see, there's p. and pages. etc.

It's not hugely below Class-A standard, but does need a lift. Tony (talk) 12:50, 17 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Tony for your comments. I hope my changes have reflected your concerns. One question - where should I insert 'towards the end of the war?' Thanks Buckshot06(prof) 21:39, 17 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Must have rubbed part of that comment out in the editing: "U.S. forces also established a officer candidate school during the later part of the war,"—the timing is just a little vague; would rather "from [year] onwards", if the sources tell you.
The source unfortunately does not - just the later part of the war. Buckshot06(prof) 23:33, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
One thing I forgot to say was that the unusual (unique?) relationship between Liberia and the US might be touched on somewhere, whether in the lead or a section. It explains why the presence of the US (training, funding, etc) has had a historical basis—even a linguistic one, since Liberia is the only African country north of Zimbabwe that has a sizeable proportion of native English-speakers.
I've increased the image sizes to 240px. Adjust please if you don't like. Tony (talk) 07:17, 18 October 2009 (UTC) PS Ref list still needs cleaning up. Tony (talk) 07:18, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose Still badly structured. The history section starts with one large unstructured amount of information that hardly explains the purpose of the Liberian forces for suppressing the natives and does not mention how they handled uprisings and how frequent that was. You must totally rework the structure. If you want a history section make it a short summary with larger subsections.

Lots of non-essential information like listing non-noteable commanders. Compare this to US Army. They don't list every general there.

The draft BIO#MIL, under discussion at WT:MILHIST, specifically includes service heads as being notable. The reason why they're on this page, instead of possibly being elsewhere, is that the US Army has literally hundreds of articles devoted to it. The entire Liberian armed forces has one, this page - thus they're listed here. I don't believe this particular object is substantive. Buckshot06(prof) 20:26, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There are too many quotes that could be reworded make part of the text. Wandalstouring (talk) 14:50, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comments
  • "the agent of the settlements directed the mobilisation of all "able-bodied males into a militia and declared martial law." You open a quote but don't finish, presumably it ends after militia, but please put the endquote in where it belongs.
  • Please try to find some more images to add. There are large blocks of text which are not broken up at all.
  • "Yet Taylor forced ECOMOG to leave Liberia by the end of 1998." Awkward, and please fix the fact tag.
  • Please be consistent with using commas in four-digit numbers: either 4,000 or 2000, not both in the same paragraph.
Better than last time, but still some issues. – Joe N 01:36, 7 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments
    • One dab link, one dead link ([1]); alt text is present.
    • The citation style varies from citation to citation. For example, current ref 4 has "Harrison Akingbade, "U.S. Liberian relations during World War II," Phylon, Vol. XLVI, No.1, 1985, p.25", while ref 6 has "John Keegan, "World Armies" page 435, ISBN 0-333-17236-1.", to ref 35, which has "Charles Hartung, 'Peacekeeping in Liberia: ECOMOG and the Struggle for Order,' Liberian Studies Journal, Volume XXX, No.2, 2005". Or you could look at ref 51 ("United Nations Mission in Liberia. "[History http://unmil.org/1content.asp?ccat=history&zdoc=1]". Retrieved October 3, 2009.") and compare it to ref 52 (""[Liberia: US Hires Private Company to Train 4,000 strong military http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/news/2005/02/mil-050215-irin01.htm]". IRINNEWS.org. Tuesday, February 15, 2005. Retrieved April 25, 2009.
    • Ref 14 ("Samukai, 2004") has no page number
    • Why is "Ellis, Stephen (2001). The Mask of Anarchy. London: Hurst and Company. ISBN 1-85065-417-4." not in the bibliography?
    • Ref 41 is a bare link
    • Ref 45 ("Liberia: New army chief named". 19.") needs more information
    • Ref 54 ("allAfrica.com: Liberia: New AFL Recruits Go Into Training (Page 1 of 1)") needs more information
    • Ref 60 is " Lieutenant Colonel Wyatt, chief of the Office of Defense Cooperation, 11 January 2008. See also http://www.analystliberia.com/4_experts_in_for_angel_autopsy_jan14_08.html and Lt Col Wyatt's blog, Monrovia Daily Monitor". Many problems: is there a link to the actual reference? Either way, we need more information. Second, there is a bare link. Third, a blog?
    • There are more problems, but I don't have the time for a 100% check. Once you finish working on these I'll go through the citations again. Regards, —Ed (talk • contribs) 06:50, 15 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your comments theed17. The dablink issue is covered in the previous A-Class review; it leads to the redirect Military of Liberia, which Kirill says cannot be fixed without messing with a master template, which is apparently not worth it. I'm annoyed about the Coast Guard link - I thought I inserted it about two weeks ago, but apparently they've reorganised their website. I should have inserted all the alt text required, I believe. Some of your others I need to work thorugh, but some are reasonably simple: Samukai 2004 is a web-published article with (one) page. I'll insert Ellis into the biography. Cheers and thanks for your comments Buckshot06 (talk) 08:11, 15 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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