Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/George S. Patton/archive1

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Ian Rose 10:02, 8 September 2013 (UTC) [1].[reply]

George S. Patton[edit]

George S. Patton (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): —Ed!(talk) 19:53, 8 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured article. —Ed!(talk) 19:53, 8 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • Note: This is a WikiCup nomination. The following nominators are WikiCup participants: Ed!. To the nominator: if you do not intend to submit this article at the WikiCup, feel free to remove this notice. UcuchaBot (talk) 00:01, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments by PumpkinSky My initial impression is quite good.
Images...File:Patton Monument West Point in new location 2009 upright.JPG, is on Commons as CC, but as it is of a statue in the USA, where there is no FOP, I think it should be on en wiki as Fair Use. File:Pattonphoto.jpg needs a source. Other images look ok to me.
More later. PumpkinSky talk 00:35, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Right now the photo fails fair use criterion #8, which calls for "Contextual significance: Non-free content is used only if its presence would significantly increase readers' understanding of the topic, and its omission would be detrimental to that understanding." This article: Patton Monument (West Point) tells us that the statue was initially erected in 1950. Very likely it was erected without a copyright notice, which would make it {{PD-US-no notice}}. Or if it was erected with a copyright notice that was never renewed, it would be {{PD-US-not renewed}}. So there's a chance that the statue is PD, but we don't have enough information at present to determine that for sure. That article has two pics of the statue and one of Luxembourg statue. I'm not sure of Luxembourg law. PumpkinSky talk 02:19, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The sculptor was Fraser, his work has come up before on Commons, see this CFD there. Let me poke around some more so we can get all his work properly marked. PumpkinSky talk 02:31, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
This statue does in fact seem to be free of copyright, see CFD on Commons, as Work for hire for the US Gov it'd be PD, it was unveiled in 1950, per the New York Times, 13 May 1951, Most Famous Unknown Sculptor by Aline B. Louchheim, there is no copyright registration record refering to any work of James Earle Fraser in the 1950 volume of the catalogue of copyright entries, Works of Art etc. (available at archive.org here, and no renewal of copyright found (see CFD). I'll fix tags later. Still need a source for the other image. PumpkinSky talk 11:11, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
pinged the original image uploader, hoping he will help. —Ed!(talk) 02:43, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
He's been editing and hasn't done squat. You can find it with an image search. PumpkinSky talk 23:38, 15 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
OK, someone has come back to me with a source and I've added it in. —Ed!(talk) 01:10, 25 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Source review - spotchecks not done

  • Long quotes like the prayer should be blockquoted
  • IMDb is not a high-quality reliable source
    • I'm somewhat confused about that, considering comparable articles such as Douglas MacArthur explicitly include it. If you insist, though, I'll just remove the section it's cited to. —Ed!(talk) 01:48, 25 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Check page formatting - there are several ranges using "p."
    • All instances of this should be fixed. —Ed!(talk) 01:48, 25 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Why are all the Blumensons wikilinked except the last?
  • Location for Brighton? Showalter?
  • Fuller, Hirshson: location notation is inconsistent with other sources. Nikkimaria (talk) 21:44, 11 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comments - Dank (push to talk)

  • "after the end of the war": after the war
  • "but performed exceptionally in appearance": I don't know what that means.
  • "In his plebe year at West Point": The word has entered the English language (and was never Latin to begin with), so no italics. It's a judgment call whether it's too informal.
  • "Fearing this assignment a dead-end career": I'm not sure what you're saying.
  • "a weapon which would": a weapon that would
  • "Patton remained in Mexico until the end of the year, however, the expedition became hampered by politics. President Woodrow Wilson forbade the expedition from conducting aggressive patrols deeper into Mexico, and so the expedition remained encamped for much of that time.": Patton remained in Mexico until the end of the year. President Woodrow Wilson forbade the expedition from conducting aggressive patrols deeper into Mexico, so they remained encamped for much of that time.
  • This is looking pretty good. I'm sorry, I won't have time for a complete prose review, but I did get down to George_S._Patton#World War I. - Dank (push to talk) 00:48, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I have made all of the above fixes. Thanks for your review. —Ed!(talk) 01:57, 25 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]


  • Support. Controversial public figures are notoriously difficult to elevate to FA, but this article is well written, intriguing and a thoroughly researched summary of a fascinating character. The article is a fine achievement on what many WWII followers would see as one of the most important articles of all. Good work by all those involved! Ctatkinson (talk) 03:08, 12 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Delegate comments -- Not as much commentary as I would have expected by now, and a subject like this really needs a fair few eyes to do it full justice. Bit odd considering the MilHist ACR was reasonably well patronised. Just scanning the Legacy section, I spotted a few places where the prose could be tightened, so if Dan doesn't feel able to continue his walk-through then I'd like to see another copyeditor pick up where he left off. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 03:27, 17 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • comments - taking a look now - will tweak prose as I go and jot queries below: Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 13:23, 21 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Patton was the military governor of Bavaria after the war before being relieved of this post, then he commanded the Fifteenth United States Army for a time. - last segment of this sentence reads weirdly and needs rephrasing.
Fixed. —Ed!(talk) 18:23, 24 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Better though now the sentences are a little short - will fine tune this.
He also joined the football team but was repeatedly removed after injuring his arm - how was he repeatedly removed? was it one injury or several..?
He injured his arm multiple times and was removed from the team because of it each time. I couldn't figure out a way to write it without seeming redundant. —Ed!(talk) 18:23, 24 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The injury almost forced Patton out of active service - reword to avoid using "injury" like in the previous sentence. Really it was the wound plus infection, so maybe "episode"?
Fixed. —Ed!(talk) 18:23, 24 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Two high-profile incidents of Patton slapping subordinates during the Sicily campaign attracted national controversy following the end of the campaign. - I'd change this "slapping" to "striking" - (1) to reduce repetition of the word, and (2) the word "striking" captures the controversy of laying hands on another person in an aggressive manner.
Fixed. —Ed!(talk) 18:23, 24 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Patton railed against cowardice and issued orders to his commanders to discipline any soldier complaining of battle fatigue - I'd change last bolded bit to "making similar complaints" - to vary up the prose a little.
Fixed. —Ed!(talk) 18:23, 24 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The general public remained mixed on the matter hmm - change to "The general public remained undecided on the matter" or "Views of the general public remained mixed on the matter" or something similar
Fixed. —Ed!(talk) 18:23, 24 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Later that month, Patton, Bradley and Eisenhower toured the Merkers salt mine as well as the Ohrdruf concentration camp, an incident which caused Patton great disgust. - confusing - was it the tour that caused disgust or the camp?
Fixed. —Ed!(talk) 18:23, 24 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The writing gets better as one goes down the page - I like the legacy section. I think the prose is engaging overall and has the right amount of colour to make an interestingread. Nice article. Can't see any content gaps but am not hugely familiar with the subject. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 06:12, 22 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Responded to everything. Thanks for your review! —Ed!(talk) 18:23, 24 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - a really nice engaging read. As a reader unfamiliar wih Patton, I have no idea about the ultimate neutrality but it does not impress as POV. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 21:41, 24 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Support with minor comments. Enjoyed reading it!

  • "Patton was the military governor of Bavaria after the war; he was relieved of this post." - this left me wanting to know a little bit more to make sense of the second half of the sentence. How about "Patton was the military governor of Bavaria after the war; he was relieved of this post because of his public statements on denazification." or something like that?
  • "But his philosophy of leading from the front and his ability to inspire his troops with vulgarity-ridden speeches, such as a famous address to the Third Army, led to new leadership philosophies in the U.S. officer corps." - repetition of philosophy - perhaps second one could be "new leadership approaches"?
  • "uniform and appearance inspections" - I wasn't quite sure if these were different things, or happened together (i.e. did he have uniform inspections, and appearance inspections, or does one have a "uniform and appearance inspection"?)
  • "He personally led a troop of tanks through thick fog " - I wasn't sure you needed "personally" here (a troop of tanks not being particularly large, I couldn't see how else you could lead it!) It is also used earlier in the para I think.
    • Well yes, but he is also a Colonel at the time, which is a very high rank for someone to be personally commanding a small unit in combat. —Ed!(talk) 00:56, 29 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • "He carried a flashy ivory-handled, Smith & Wesson Model 27 .357 Magnum." - repetition of "flashy" from the previous sentence (where I think it worked better than here)
  • "conspicuous desire... conspicuous actions" - ditto
  • Formatting of citation/reference 155 looks really different to the rest. Hchc2009 (talk) 09:03, 25 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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