Wikipedia:Featured article review/Battle of Incheon/archive1

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

The article was removed by User:Marskell 14:53, 9 October 2008 [1].

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Battle of Incheon

Review commentary

WikiProjects notified: Military history, Korea, Korea/Military history. Users notified: BrokenSegue (talk · contribs), Neutrality (talk · contribs), as well as Hongkyongnae (talk · contribs), Donald Albury (talk · contribs), Parsecboy (talk · contribs), Clarityfiend (talk · contribs), Good friend100 (talk · contribs), Rjensen (talk · contribs), Schrandit (talk · contribs)

This article passed FA nearly four years ago (16 December 2004), and underwent a peer review a little over one month later. By the standards we have now, I'm not sure this article passes the featured article criteria.

My main concern is the POV issues. While the article discusses in detail the actions taken by the UN, it doesn't describe what the North Koreans were doing. For example, it describes the planning done by UN forces, but there is no mention of what North Korea was doing in anticipation. Surely North Korean military intelligence had spies to keep them informed on potential attacks. Was North Korea building up fortifications, as only hinted at by the article ("the guerrillas gathered information about […] enemy fortifications" and "the Marines entered Seoul to find it heavily fortified")? Were there campaigns of disinformation to deceive the North Koreans (or vice versa)? This article is written almost entirely from the UN point of view! Granted, there are probably few unbiased North Korean reports of the battle (if any exist), but surely some North Korean POWs, or military officers who later defected, had some different accounts from what is presented here. Even the account of a historian about the North Korean actions—whether the historian be North Korean, South Korean, American, French, Gabonese—might help remove the POV.

Secondary to that, the article hardly contains any inline citations (10 references used a total of 11 times). There are many extra references listed at the bottom, so I don't doubt the information is true, but it is preferred if the facts presented can be attributed to the proper source. Do the people at FAC consider this important?

Finally, the lack of comprehensiveness (aside from the POV issues) is another concern: are "Background", "Battle", "Aftermath", and "Popular culture" really the only aspects to consider? — Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 01:30, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for asking for this article to be reviewed, Twas Now. To be frank, this article does not even pass the B-class criteria, imo. There are many statements in the article which I believe should be verified, which I will proceed to highlight with 'citation needed' tags, that are not supported by a source, reliable or otherwise. 10 inline citations is not enough to allow an article to be FA-class.

As for POV, from my study of the battle, I have been informed that there is very little information available regarding North Korea's view of the fight, due to the fact that North Korea has rarely released military information to the outside world. I would like to see an article that balances NK's and the UN's account of the engagement at Incheon, but I do not believe that can be practically achieved. Still, we should still try to get more information on NK's view of the Battle of Incheon, nonetheless.

Regarding comprehensiveness, according to Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Style guide, an article on a battle should have a 'Background', 'Prelude', 'Battle', and 'Aftermath' part. If it meets this recommendation, then I do not believe the article can be faulted regarding its sections. JEdgarFreeman (talk) 17:59, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't expect any official North Korean accounts exist, either. If they do exist, I suspect they would be heavily biased, or probably outright fabrications. Still, it's hard to believe there would be no accounts whatsoever (even US accounts) of what the North Korean army was doing. — Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 01:50, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Comment North Korea is such an isolated country (self-imposed) that very little is broadcast about that country. Seeing as how their basic military thought hasn't changed in 60+ years, the U.S. may indeed have information, but are unwilling to share such information with the public because it is still classified. That said, the article is pretty good, but could use a good scrubbing. — BQZip01 — ^talk 17:00, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are POV (1d) and referencing (1c). Marskell (talk) 16:53, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

• Remove Most of the article is unsourced, especially since it has only 12 inline citations. As a result, this article fails 1c of the FA criteria, and thus it should no longer be listed as an FA-class article. 86.149.61.123 (talk) 18:30, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Right now we aren't deciding if this should be kept or removed. We discuss possible improvements (many have occurred since I started this FAR), but if the issues are not resolved, then the article can be brought to "Featured article removal candidate", where we will vote. — Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 21:19, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes we are, see what Marskell has initiatied, FARC. -MBK₀₀₄ 21:26, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

The FARC commentary has now started. As a result, 'remove' or 'keep' can now be added. Also, whilst some improvements may have been made to the article, it only has 12 inline citations, only 1 up from when the review was started nearly two weeks ago, and that means that large areas of the article are unsourced. A largely unsourced article does not pass FA criteria 1c, and as a result, it cannot pass the FA criteria. 86.149.61.123 (talk) 23:07, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

• Remove. The article has been worked on a bit since this FAR started but many of the above issues have not been addressed and some serious referencing issues still remain. Cirt (talk) 09:45, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
• Remove Citation needed tags need clearing. As I do not read Korean, it is very difficult to assess the copyright status or sources of most of the images. DrKiernan (talk) 11:58, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
• Remove Lack of citations is clear and I do not believe that the article meets the required level of comprehensiveness. JonCatalán^(Talk) 18:39, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
• Remove 1c. YellowMonkey (click here to choose Australia's next top model) 07:32, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.