Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Camp Chapman attack

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The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Passed the ACR, accepting only 3 supports for passage in lieu of no opposes to the ACR. TomStar81 (Talk) 03:47, 12 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Camp Chapman attack[edit]

Nominator(s):   Cs32en Talk to me 
Toolbox

Prior nomination here.

I am nominating this article for A-Class review, as the Camp Chapman attack was one of the most important attacks against the United States Central Intelligence Agency. It is considered to be the most lethal attack against the CIA since the bombing of the CIA station in Beirut. The article has been reviewed by MBK004 (talk · contribs). I have nominated the article for A-Class before, and some problems have been fixed during the review process. However, as the review had not been completed within 28 days, the article has not been promoted at that point. In the mean time, some links for references have turned inoperative. I have removed these URLs, but left the references in the text. These sources were available online at the time the information has been used to write the article, and the sources should still be available off-line.  Cs32en Talk to me  20:33, 13 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding the dead URLs, have you tried to find an archived page, such as Internet Archive? bahamut0013wordsdeeds 17:05, 14 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your feedback! Yes, I did. For the press agency releases that have been available at the New York Times website, the search produces the message "We're sorry, access to http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/01/05/world/AP-ML-Jordan-CIA-Afghan-Attack.htm has been blocked by the site owner via robots.txt." The other links, which are Google cache results, do not seem to be available on the archive either. Sometimes, article titles change, and maybe there is a copy of one of the articles on the net somewhere. However, such copies may well be copyvios, so we couldn't link to them anyway.  Cs32en Talk to me  01:07, 15 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Update: Legal copies of some of the sources may exist at other news sites. For example, a copy of the AP release above seems to be available at FOX News. I'm going to look for further such copies in the next few days.  Cs32en Talk to me  01:14, 15 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
 Done I have replaced the dead URLs with links to other websites. As these are all well-known reliable sources, we can probably assume that these are not copyvios.  Cs32en Talk to me  22:22, 15 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments:
  • no dab links, external links work, alt text is present (no action required);
 Fixed (Nothing to do.)  Cs32en Talk to me  10:10, 4 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • images seem correctly licenced (no action required);
 Fixed (Nothing to do.)  Cs32en Talk to me  10:10, 4 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • there is a mixture of terminology, sometimes you use "Camp Chapman", at other times "Forward Operating Base Chapman", these should be consistent;
 Done I have changed the term "Camp" to "Forward Operating Base" in the text. Reliable sources use both terms, but this is the official name of the compound.  Cs32en Talk to me  10:10, 4 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • there are a few contractions, e.g. "wasn't" and "doesn't" which should be reworded unless they are in direct quotes;
 Done I have expanded the contractions.  Cs32en Talk to me  10:19, 4 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • the article has a mixture of US and British English, for instance "defence" in the Intial reports section, but also "defense" in the Jordanian reaction section. You need to make these consistent. AustralianRupert (talk) 10:28, 25 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your feedback and advice! I'll address the issues in the next few days. As I'm not a native English speaker (neither US nor British), I may need some help with regard to the last item in the list. I'll try to check the article for possible problems in that respect, and list them here if I'm not sure what action to take.  Cs32en Talk to me  19:40, 30 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I've rectified any examples I could find of British English (except in the titles of sources, where they should stay as is). I think I got them all. Regards. AustralianRupert (talk) 08:37, 31 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
 Fixed (No further action required.)  Cs32en Talk to me  10:20, 4 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support: my concerns have been addressed. AustralianRupert (talk) 08:56, 6 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment The lead is too short with so much information in the body. There are a lot of short 1-line paragraphs, and the newspaper listings in the refs are inconsistnent, only some are italicised YellowMonkey (new photo poll) 02:53, 2 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
 Done I've expanded the lead.  Cs32en Talk to me  11:02, 4 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
 Question: In some cases, the content of short paragraphs cannot be merged with other paragraphs, because it refers to a different aspects of the topic of the respective section. It also cannot be extended, either because that would give undue weight to its content, or because there is no additional verifiable information available. In these cases, I have rather left the short paragraphs in the text. I would suggest to discuss this problem on a paragraph-by-paragraph basis, so that the best action can be taken with regard to each case.  Cs32en Talk to me  11:02, 4 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
 Fixed (Probably no further action necessary.) I have grouped some more short paragraphs into longer paragraphs (i.e. in the lead). In my view, the length of the paragraphs in the current version is appropriate. I would revisit the issue, of course, if there are concerns about this aspect of the article.  Cs32en Talk to me  23:45, 11 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
 Done I've changed some instances in which "publisher" had been used instead of "journal". All names of journals should now appear in italics.  Cs32en Talk to me  11:02, 4 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I have done some minor restructuring with regard to some paragraphs and sub-sections.  Cs32en Talk to me  11:21, 4 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Two suggestions, (1) you could write a quick stub for chemical fingerprint, or (2) just pipe the link, as per what I have done here: chemical fingerprint. AustralianRupert (talk) 08:56, 6 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
 Question: In this instance, piping the link may be understood to suggest that the U.S. Bomb Data Center would be somehow involved in this, or that methods used by that institution would have been used. I have replaced "chemical fingerprint" with "chemical composition". While that may be a weaker term than "chemical fingerprint", referring to explosives tracers, or analysis of isotopes, may well be exagerrating what the claim actually is about, so it's better to err on the side of caution here. Is that change appropriate, in your view?  Cs32en Talk to me  15:26, 6 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
In this case I'd suggest just using whatever the exact term in the source may be, otherwise we are providing our on interpretation which might not necessarily be correct. My own understanding of the concept of chemical fingerprint is limited, so I'm not really sure, sorry. AustralianRupert (talk) 06:16, 7 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I've changed it back from "chemical composition" to "chemical fingerprint" (without the red link). "Chemical fingerprint" is a colloquial term that is being used to describe the contents of a mixture of chemicals, and may include their relative shares in the substance. Often, the focus is not only on the main components, but also on traces or by-products from the production of the substance. I have not included that section into the article, and the content is based on two sources that may well have a an anti-Pakistani (pro-India in the case of ANI, pro-Russia in the case of Posner) slant. So I would also agree to remove that section. If we would start a discussion on removing the section, we should inform the editor who added the content, however.  Cs32en Talk to me  11:46, 7 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Henry A. Crumpton is a redlink in some other articles, too. I have therefore retained the redlink in this article.  Cs32en Talk to me  11:34, 4 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

 Fixed (No further action required, as this appears to be uncontroversial.)  Cs32en Talk to me  22:05, 9 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support TomStar81 (Talk) 14:18, 7 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment—A1, citation presentation quality: Pedantic nitpickery: "The Times (London)." No, just no. Oxford: Oxford University Press makes sense, they publish through New York as well. The Times is simply that newspaper which is published in London called The Times, it requires no appellations of location as all other newspapers called simply The Times must clarify that they are not The Times. Feel free to ignore. Fifelfoo (talk) 03:15, 8 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
A bot has added this to the article. It also changed some other references, in this article, as well as in other articles. If the link doesn't work, i.e. on a print-out of the page, it may be helpful to have the precise information that this is The Times, published in London, and not The Times, published elsewhere. But this seems to be a far-fetched justification for the addition.  Cs32en Talk to me  08:09, 8 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for explaining, do you remember the bot's name so I can go have words with it? Fifelfoo (talk) 08:51, 8 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Here's the diff of the edit.  Cs32en Talk to me  13:39, 8 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, I've chased down the cause of this. Readers may be interested in Template_talk:Cite_news#Proposed_modification_of_Template_documentation_in_relation_to_The_Times Fifelfoo (talk) 14:54, 8 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
 Done I've removed the location from references to The Times of London. (Let's see whether the bot will add them back or not.)  Cs32en Talk to me  22:16, 9 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. I picked up a couple of points that might be worth considering if you intend to take it further (ie FAC):
  • Why does the background section come after the information about the attack rather than before it?
Thank you for your suggestions on improving the article! I don't know whether there is any policy or guideline on the ordering of sections (i.e. based on content, not formal considerations). My viewpoint is that Wikipedia is not a history textbook, and many people would know at least some of the background. They would probably be more interested in the specific event. Placing the background first also may introduce a tendency to present the text like a story. But if it's well done, it may work.  Cs32en Talk to me  23:39, 11 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Would it be possible to apply summary style more robustly to trim down the amount of content in some areas?
Some content has been outsourced, and it's probably possible to relegate more content to sub-articles. This may also be possible with regard to the background section. I basically haven't touch those articles that are related to the background section. Also, as these related articles are not subarticles, the content in this article is an excerpt of relevant content rather than a summary of these other articles. I would prefer to leave the article as it is, for the time being. There have been some controversial discussions about a number of minor changes to the article, and the stability of the current version indicates that the current version, while not perfect, proabably addresses all legitimate viewpoints and concerns about the content.  Cs32en Talk to me  23:39, 11 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
However, I believe this interesting and well-researched article meets our current A-Class criteria. Nice job :) EyeSerenetalk 08:35, 10 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your positive assessment of the article! Taking the article to an FAC nomination, however, may well be a major challenge, given the scarcity of (well-researched) sources, as well as images, about the event.  Cs32en Talk to me  23:48, 11 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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