Talk:Leroy Petry/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Cdtew (talk · contribs) 16:34, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

I'll be happy to review this; I'm still new at reviewing, so I appreciate your patience! I'll have some points here, if any, shortly. Cdtew (talk) 16:34, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

This appears to be a great article containing about all of the publicly available and encyclopedic information necessary to understand the subject with a layperson's level of knowledge. There were a few areas where details became a little technical, which I'll discuss below. As I have not served in the military, there are some terms and phrasing that are fuzzy to me, and would be fuzzy to a majority of readers (e.g., "side plate"). I think a little clarification may help, but otherwise this article is right for GA.

Changes I made

I tried to make each of these sets of changes in discrete packets, so feel free to revert if you disagree:

• "Sergeant First Class" to "sergeant first class" per WP:MILTERMS, and as used in other MOH articles (see:what I believe is your work in Clinton Romesha)
• "U.S. Army's" in lead to "United States Armed Forces'", similar to usage in Salvatore Giunta
• Also removed dashed parenthetical (is there a word for that), containing "the medal of honor".
• "winner in any branch" changed to "winner from any branch", since the rest of the sentence tells us he's still in the branch, and that would otherwise be redundant.
• September 11th Attacks to "September 11th attacks"
• "Washington State" (dablinked) to "Washington (state)|Washington state", style per that state's wiki page.
• "Over the course of his career" to "During his time in Iraq and Afghanistan,"
• "Petry lost his right arm" to "Petry's wounds resulted in the loss of..."
  • All of these sound good. Thanks! —Ed!^(talk) 02:27, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Further suggestions

Lead section

• Would you consider breaking the section into three grafs, with the third starting at "Petry, who now wears a..."?
  • Done. —Ed!^(talk) 02:27, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Biography

• Who described Petry as "very active and likeable"? Seems like a paraphrased quote, which would require an immediate inline cite.
  • Clarified this. —Ed!^(talk) 02:27, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
• "had to repeat his freshman year" - it might be just me, but "had to repeat" seems colloquial. Would you accept "Was forced to repeat"? That may not be accurate. I suppose after a certain age, you wouldn't have to be forced to repeat anything, depending on what state you're in.
  • 'Was forced to repeat' is passive voice, which Wikipedia frowns upon. —Ed!^(talk) 02:27, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

• Yeah, I suppose passive is no good, but this isn't a critical thing to GAN, so I don't think we need to worry about t much. Cdtew (talk) 04:38, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

• The stuff about fixing cars and cooking...I don't mind it, but it does stick out as a little awkward. This also seems like a good time to discuss the U.S. Army source that information, as well as other information, comes from. I personally don't strictly think that the military should count as an "employer" for the purposes of determining whether or not a military source about a present or former military officer is a "reliable third-party source". In other words, I think your use of it is fine, generally, and heck, maybe its even customary to accept that as a source in MOH circumstances. But, to play devil's advocate, would you accept, for instance, the Soviet Union's releases about, say, Yuri Gagarin, as reliable 3P sources? At the time of Gagarin's post-spaceflight tour, the Soviet union used his farm-boy past for all sorts of propaganda reasons, and, while I don't have any handy, I could easily see written descriptions saying things like "and in his spare time as a boy, Gagarin would hunt for muskoxen, and play hockey on frozen lakes" to humanize him and fit their patriotic "every Russian can do anything because of Russia" message. Long story short, that's what i thought about then I read this section; I'm not opposed to leaving it in, but it seems incongruous.
  • The U.S. military has a far more reliable track record than the Soviets though; I'll grant you no article would pass with only U.S. military sources, but this one has enough of a mix of military and independent publications. When it comes down to it, people seem to turn to the most basic idea of WP:CITE, where information like his hobbies and background aren't that important or likely to be challenged, so they don't need as rigorous a test. The finer details of the more important stuff, like the Medal of Honor action itself, would be a different story. —Ed!^(talk) 02:27, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

• Sounds reasonable to me. Cdtew (talk) 04:38, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

• When did he marry Ashley? If not available, it's OK, it just comes at you out of nowhere.
  • Just took another look; I still can't find anything reliable on a marriage date or when the children were born. —Ed!^(talk) 02:27, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Military career

• Unless Ranger training is a one-day seminar, I think the sentence "On the morning of the September 11th Attacks..." seems awkward. Perhaps it'd be better as "At the time of the September 11th Attacks,"?
  • Done. —Ed!^(talk) 02:27, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
• I think the sentence beginning with "By the time Petry had been awarded the Medal of Honor, he had seen a total of eight deployments:" has too much foreshadowing. I think it'd be simpler, and less out-of-order to say "Petry saw a total of eight deployments:"? What are your thoughts?
  • Fixed it. —Ed!^(talk) 02:27, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
• Is it common to say one's military education "includes" in the present tense, especially while in active service? Most of the soldiers I deal with have been dead for 200 years, but it seems like "includes" is a little strange. I would suggest "included", since he has completed his education, for the most part. If its common usage, I'm ok with it.
  • In this case, he's still an active soldier and he's still alive, so present tense is preferred for BLPs. He may well elect to undertake more education, and more deployments for that matter. —Ed!^(talk) 02:27, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

• Good enough explanation for me. I suppose military education is continuing, and isn't like getting a bachelors or such. Cdtew (talk) 04:38, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Medal of Honor action

• "which was on a daylight raid" seems abrupt, maybe "which had been ordered to make a daylight raid"?
  • Again, that creates passive voice problems. —Ed!^(talk) 02:27, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

• I guess the only other way would be to insert a subject doing the ordering; this isn't anything to probably worry about for GAN, just a thought.

• for a lay reader, what's so special about being "senior non-commissioned officer at the site"? What duties or privileges does this entail?
  • The link has the information, and adding it here might be awkward, I think. Basically non-commissioned officers usually aren't the senior people on the scene in a battle, so it's an unusual exception worth a note when one is. —Ed!^(talk) 02:27, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
• The helicopters sort of come out of nowhere. Maybe just changing it to "after getting out of the helicopters that delivered Petry's unit to the attack site..."
  • Fixed. —Ed!^(talk) 02:27, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
• The site description seems a little disjointed, like for instance -- is the outer courtyard a part of the target building? And the building he cleared before entering the OC, is that part of the target building, or an adjacent one?
  • The map on the right is intended for reference. —Ed!^(talk) 02:27, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
• What is a "side plate"? I'm assuming it's a component of body armor. Lay readers will have the same question.
  • Clarified a little. —Ed!^(talk) 02:27, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
• Did he actually throw the grenade, or attempt to throw? It sounds like the grenade was possibly a foot or perhaps more from his hand when it detonated, so I'm not sure if the best verb is "throwing the grenade" or "attempting to throw the grenade".
  • Well he successfully threw it (the alternative would have been he'd been holding it or had dropped it, neither is the case) —Ed!^(talk) 02:27, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
• Final graf of that section, is "the Platoon Sergeant" a different person from Staidle (in which case it's OK to capitalize), or is that Staidle's command description (in which case I think it should be uncapitalized).
  • Uncapitalized the term. —Ed!^(talk) 02:27, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
• "state-of-the-art" I'm not sure this violates a policy or anything, but logically, someone reading this article in 2023 may think Petry's current (circa 2013) prosthesis is a piece of garbage like we think of a walkman or a vhs camcorder. Just a thought about the wording.
  • Agreed. Reworded. —Ed!^(talk) 02:27, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
• I think your last usage of "Sergeant First Class" is fine as capitalized, since it refers to the rank as a proper noun.
  • WP:MILMOS favors uncapitalizing ranks unless they immediately precede a name. —Ed!^(talk) 02:27, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Ribbon bar

• What can you tell me about the current status of the controversy at Talk:Leroy Petry#Awards? It appears as if most of the disputed awards were removed from the ribbon table, although...
• 2-b: the Joint Service medal is there, and was one of the disputed medals, but doesn't appear to be supported by the source used.
• 2-b: Army Good Conduct medal with four good conduct loops, but the source would indicate only two loops are warranted;
• 2-b: Afghanistan Campaign Medal with two Service stars --> source only mentions one combat star
• 2-b: Iraq Campaign Medal with two Service stars --> source only mentions one combat star
• N.B.: I'm no expert, but I understand the basics of how ribbons and stars/oak leaves/etc. work; if you think I'm missing something here, let me know. At the least, though, I think this needs additional source support.
  • Discussion about whether or not to include some of these awards is continuing right now at Salvatore Giunta. I believe until something changes they're staying in for now. As far as the extra stars and oak leaves, those may well be more recent than the sources, but I can't find something with a more recently updated list. Would you prefer they be removed? —Ed!^(talk) 02:27, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

• The awards line up with what's in the official US Army photo shown in the infobox. Ive read all the arguments, and while i see what RightCow's point has been,i think theres more than one way to skin a cat, and one doesnt necessarily need the permanent orders to support the unit awards. The same goes, in my opinion, to more recent combat stars and Good conduct loops. For the purposes of WP:VERIFY, I'm willing to accept a portrait by the issuing authority to be a reliable source at this point. If the argument wants to continue later, I think that's an accuracy issue that's beyond the scope of GAN. Cdtew (talk) 04:28, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Images and captions

• Images check out; most are PD-USGOV, and the few that aren't have free-use or fair-use tags.
• Captions here don't require cites, as information and sources found on individual image pages.

Copyvio/etc.

• No copyvio detected through DupDetector and random google searching
• No Dablinks
• No linkrot per Checklinks or bare URL's

Summary

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (reference section): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

6. It is illustrated by images and other media, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free content have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

I've responded to all of your comments. Thanks for reviewing the article! —Ed!^(talk) 02:27, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your patience! I have tried using a holistic method of GAN review, but I'm afraid the volume of comments I make may be both irrelevant for the sole purpose of passing GAN, and may be frustrating to editors whose articles I'm reviewing. A the same time, i like providing comments for articles to "grow on". I guess I need to learn to be more succinct, and not think out loud as much in my reviews. Take care! Cdtew (talk) 04:52, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Yes, congrats to Ed! for working on this article for improving this up to GA.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 18:45, 14 February 2013 (UTC)