Template:Did you know nominations/First Battle of Warsaw (1794)

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Round symbols for illustrating comments about the DYK nomination The following is an archived discussion of First Battle of Warsaw (1794)'s DYK nomination. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page; such as this archived nomination"s (talk) page, the nominated article's (talk) page, or the Did you knowDYK comment symbol (talk) page. Unless there is consensus to re-open the archived discussion here. No further edits should be made to this page. See the talk page guidelines for (more) information.

The result was: promoted by BlueMoonset (talk) 01:57, 9 March 2013 (UTC).

First Battle of Warsaw (1794)[edit]

Created/expanded by Piotrus (talk). Self nom at 19:39, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

  • The article is new. Its long enough (2,466 characters). The hook is not too long (135 caracters). The article is sourced with cited sources. I am uncertain if article's name meets wikipedia Wikipedia:Article titles. --Antidiskriminator (talk) 18:48, 16 December 2012 (UTC)
  • First battle only in 1794? Knowing that territory of Poland was very often battlefield in many wars during its history I was surprised when I saw the name of this article. The First Battle of Warsaw happened only in 1794? Then I saw disambiguation page and realized that there were many other battles of Warsaw before this one.
  • Sources? Then I thought to myself that because during 1794 there were more than one battles of Warsaw this is probably the name used in reliable sources for this battle. But when I searched Google Books there were 0 GBS hits for this name.
  • First of more than one battles of Warsaw in 1794? The other battle which happened in 1794 is referred to as the Battle of Praga (again 0 GBS hits for Second Battle of Warsaw in 1974).
  • Descriptive title? Then I thought that this title is probably descriptive one, but according to the policy: Even descriptive titles should be based on sources.
  • Translation? Then I thought, that this name is probably a result of translation from Polish language sources because this event does not have enough coverage in English sources. But when I searched Google Books I found thousands English language sources which mention this event.
  • Discuss? Then I said to myself that very experienced user like Piotrus must have had very good reason for this title and decided not to raise this issue on this page but to first express my doubt on the article's talk page (diff). Since there was no response on my comment on the article's talkpage and I wanted to nominate another article for DYK I had to express my concern on this page.
To conclude:
  1. Sources?: Per Wikipedia:Article titles "Article titles are based on what reliable English-language sources refer to the article's subject by." Based on the above explanation I am uncertain if this article's title meets this request of the policy.
  2. naturalness criteria of the policy is probably not met because I don't think that this title is something "readers are likely to look for or search with as well as those that editors naturally use to link from other articles".
  3. Also it probably does not meet Conciseness criteria (it is too long maybe without reason ('First' is probably wrong because this was not the first battle of Warsaw).
  4. At the end the article's title probably does not meet Consistency criteria because it is not consistent with other Battles of Warsaw (especially after I directly linked Battle of Praga per MOS:DAB instead over redirect)--Antidiskriminator (talk) 22:41, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
I appreciate your detailed analysis above; that said, the name of the article is not even used in the DYK, and as such I believe this discussion belongs on article's talk and there are no grounds to delay the DYK's passing. However, since we started the discussion here: 1) I am not aware of the naming policy that states that First Battle of X must be the first battle of X ever; if 2+ battles took place in at X in a single year, I think it is acceptable to call them the First and Second Battles of X (DATE). 2) Regarding the name, it's a bit of a problem, yes. English sources for Battle of Warsaw for that period are slim; a much more common term is Siege of Warsaw, but this term can be used for both battles (ex. [1] uses it do describe both conflicts, rather incorrectly merging them into one entry; [2] is one of several works that uses it for the first battle, but [3] for example uses it for the second battle (mentioning Suworow's taking of Praga) ("The end came with the siege of Warsaw by the Russians under General Suvorov. When the first lines of resistance were broken, Suvorov entered Praga".) Polish sources use the term "Defense of Warsaw" (here's an entire book using that particular title: Obrona Warszawy w Powstaniu Kościuszkowskim 1794 r, although as most of them are not online I cannot verify if (as I suspect) many of them discuss both battles; ditto for the term siege of Warsaw ("oblężenie Warszawy"), which is also popular (sample book). I am unable to find any source, Polish or English, which presents any good differentiation in the titles of those battles (again, this is compounded by the fact that Polish sources, which discuss them more extensively, are mostly offline).
So, to summarize: as I've show, English sources are inconsistent, and Polish, inaccessible. Using either Battle or Siege of Warsaw (1794) is risky, due to disambiguation issues; as such we need to have a more descriptive title - hence the "First". I am pretty sure that our naming policy allows such titles to be used in those rare situations; I am open to suggestion of a better title, but so far I see none proposed (I guess First Siege of Warsaw (1794) would be as good, but I prefer the word battles to siege, which I think may be backed up by some obscure milhist preference, but I don't have time or will to haunt for any source to support this). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 11:37, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
  • DYK rules request that article itself (the title belongs to the article) should meet core policies and guidelines. Article titles policy is one of them, so it should be met although the article title is piped in hook. Still, after reading your detailed explanation I understand that it is not an easy task to define the title for this article because of the numerous battles for Warsaw so I don't insist on it.
  • Still, there are couple of other thing which confuse me (I don't know much about Polish history so please accept my apologize if I am wrong). In order to save space on DYK nomination page I will express my concerns on the article's talkpage.--Antidiskriminator (talk) 11:28, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

I would appreciate second opinion about terminology used in this article.--Antidiskriminator (talk) 22:24, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

  • This appears to be stuck until the naming issue can be resolved. There are proposals on the the article's talk page; when everything has been settled and whatever needs to be renamed has been renamed, then we can look for that second opinion requested above. BlueMoonset (talk) 19:18, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
  • I have requested that interested editors start RM (I won't, since I think the current name is acceptable). If no RM is started in the near future, I'd ask for this DYK to go forward, as it is unfair for it to be held by editors who have no interest in starting a RM. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 19:25, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
  • I'm totally OK with the article itself. However, the hook as it's nominated seems to contradict H2 criterium. I'm sure that the Polish insurgents "defended" Warsaw while Kościuszko was "leading" or "commanding" them, not "defending" large city by his own). Please reword the hook. Wishes, Ukrained2012 (talk) 09:30, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
ALT1: ... that during the Kościuszko Uprising in 1794, Tadeusz Kościuszko's army successfully defended the Polish capital of Warsaw for about two months?
  • Review needed of ALT1 hook. BlueMoonset (talk) 03:53, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
  • Firstly, the statement in the article that the siege lasted two months is only made in the intro and is unsourced. Secondly, the article contains an infobox named "Battle of Praga" but nowhere in the article is a "battle of praga" mentioned. Gatoclass (talk) 08:56, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
ALT2: ... that during the Kościuszko Uprising in 1794, Tadeusz Kościuszko's army successfully defended the Polish capital of Warsaw from forces under Frederick William II of Prussia?
The caption for the infobox image still says "defence of Praga" and it is not clear to me which actual battle the image itself depicts, since the image page itself only identifies the date as 1794, which could mean either battle. Gatoclass (talk) 05:56, 23 February 2013 (UTC)
Caption fixed, my error from copying a template from the other battle. Picture is AGFed as per its use on pl wiki. (if you have time, you can look through the source book linked on Commons and find the right page, and I'll verify what the Polish text states). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 06:44, 23 February 2013 (UTC)
Piotrus, it's not my job to do your research for you. If you want to use the image and you have a link to the source, then you should locate the image in the source and verify it is the correct map yourself. Gatoclass (talk) 16:05, 23 February 2013 (UTC)
Gatoclass, I am reasonably convinced it's the correct map; it was added to the pl wiki and commons by an experienced editor in Polish history. The map is also mostly irrelevant to this DYK (it's not part of this nom). If you have an issue with the map, take it to the talk page of the editor who added it the the original Polish article and commons (User_talk:Mathiasrex); it is simply not relevant here, nor do I consider it worth my time to second guess such an experienced editor as him. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 01:43, 24 February 2013 (UTC) PS. Another editor confirms it is the correct map at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Poland#Concerns_over_a_historical_map, as I was saying all along. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 01:34, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
I can't read Polish and google translate gives an incomprehensible translation, would you mind providing a direct translation of Laforgue's comment? Gatoclass (talk) 07:29, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
He confirms it's the correct map based on in-text description. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 08:53, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
Well I did ask you for an exact translation, but since you are giving me an unequivocal assurance I will AGF on that. I will complete the review of this article in the next day or two if somebody else does not get there first. Gatoclass (talk) 11:06, 1 March 2013 (UTC)