Harv and Sfn no-target errors[edit]

@Andy02124 Thanks for your help with sfn errors, I ended up giving up on the ÖBL template and just wrote a regular cite web, so it matches the others. Aeengath (talk) 07:17, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

GA Review[edit]

GA toolbox
Reviewing
This review is transcluded from Talk:Adolf von Rhemen/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: Aeengath (talk · contribs)

Reviewer: Johannes Schade (talk · contribs) 10:21, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]


Welcome Good day Aeengath. I propose to review your GA nomination “Adolf von Rhemen”. Admittedly, I am only an apprentice-reviewer. I must also warn you that my English is 2nd language and that I am no subject-matter expert. I will propose corrections and suggest optional improvements. The corrections rely on the GA criteria (WP:GACR). Some are tentative. Please tell me when you disagree with a correction. I am probably wrong. You can ignore my suggestions. They have no effect on the article's promotion. I will start with the preliminaries and then work through the article's sections, sometimes returning to previous sections when needed.

—End of 1st instalment— Best regards, Johannes Schade (talk) 10:21, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Before the article content

Lead

Early life and career

Citations. With the beginning of the main content starts the flow of the citations. Checking citations can become quite involved and many reviewers do only spot checks. I believe that this is largely due to a lack of understanding on the side of the writers.

—End of 2nd instalment— Best regards, Johannes Schade (talk) 13:25, 21 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Aeengath:. Thanks for your replies. I found that you were right and I was wrong in quite a few places, such as Rhemen being sometimes called Baron instead of Freiherr.

Lead (revisited)

Early life and career (revisited)

—End of 3rd instalment— Best regards, Johannes Schade (talk) 15:59, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your reply and for taking the time to do more research @Johannes Schade. I do not think we can add much more about his family without new reliable sources. Aeengath (talk) 16:45, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Aeengath:. I though you wanted to have his father's birth and death dates. Admittedly there is a strange contradiction about his father's rank. Do you think the book I found is not a reliable source? There is an article about the author in the German Wikipedia. Of course these soldiers are not neutral. They push there own glory. Besides, the book is also at Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/geschichtedeskk00wenggoog/page/707/ Can you read German? Best regards Johannes Schade (talk) 21:51, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

What I meant is that without a source that directly supports the statement that Peter von Rhemen was his father, we cannot include it in the article, without one it becomes original research. Aeengath (talk) 07:03, 23 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Aeengath:. Oh yes indeed. I simply trusted the German Wikipedia article that maintains Adolfs's father was Peter, but does not seem to have any source supporting that staetement. Peter was born 1790 which makes him look more like a grandfather than a father. Quite interestingly, the Czech Wikipedia has an article about Hugo Rhemen zu Barensfield (https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Rhemen) who could perhaps be a brother. I cannot speak Czech and used an automatic translator. Greetings, Johannes Schade (talk) 21:06, 23 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hi @Johannes Schade, Do you have any more comments about the article? Aeengath (talk) 08:58, 26 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Aeengath:. I got sidetracked on the question of his father and must admit that we have not made real progess. Here comes the next round.
@Johannes Schade, no worries if RS about his family come about they can always be added later. Aeengath (talk)

Early life and career (continued)

Command of XIII Corps

First Serbian campaign

—End of instalment— Best regards, Johannes Schade (talk) 21:19, 26 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Aeengath:. Another round

Early life and career (revisited again)

Command of XIII Corps (revisited)

First Serbian Campaign (revisited)

—End of instalment— Best regards, Johannes Schade (talk) 07:35, 28 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Aeengath:. Another round

First Serbian Campaign (revisited again)

It is not easy to get a clear picture of the role played by the XIII in the first Serbian campagn. A map might help. I found two passible maps, one using ((Location map many)) the other ((OSM location map)) I do not have much experience with maps but I have played a bit around:

Adolf von Rhemen is located in Serbia
Belgrad
Belgrad
Šabac
Šabac
Loznica
Loznica
Valjevo
Valjevo
Brčko
Brčko
Cer
Cer
Locations of the Serbian Campaign (1914)
Map
About OpenStreetMaps
Maps: terms of use
30km
20miles
.
Cer
  
Locations of the Battle of Cer and Serbian Campaign (1914)

Perhaps you could do better. Do you think it useful?

—End of instalment— Best regards, ~~

@Aeengath:. Another round

=== First Serbian Campaign (revisited again) === Sorry got it wrong. It is

Command of XIII Corps

Dear Aeengath, I find your English should be plainer and mor encyclopedic. We must not follow the styles of the sources. They are often not concise, but "concise" is prescribed in GA criterion 1a.

—End of instalment— Best regards, Johannes Schade (talk) 16:52, 29 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Aeengath:. Another round

Dear Aeengath I found a obituary for Rhemen in an Austrian military newspaper called "Österreichische Wehrzeitung", often abbreviated (ÖWz), 15 January 1932. The obituary seems to repeat all that we already know. The only news in there is that he was married and was survived by his wive. See:

https://anno.onb.ac.at/cgi-content/anno?aid=daz&datum=19320115&seite=1&zoom=33

I also found an old map of Serbia. See:

https://web.archive.org/web/20090406133430/http://www.feefhs.org/maplibrary/balkans/ba-serb.html

An Hungarian book entitled "A Nagy Háború osztrák–magyar tábornokai" (Austro-Hungarian generals of the Great War) by Tibor Balla, 2010 contain a short biography of Rhemen. This added that Rhemen was a Roman Catholic and interestingly attended elementary school in Budweis, southern Bohemia. At the end is a note that gives his father's name as "Note: His father, Captain Eberhard Freiherr von Rhemen" but with the quite unlikely death dae of 14 January 1932. See:

https://real-d.mtak.hu/652/7/dc_633_12_doktori_mu.pdf

Rhemen is on pages 253 &254.

 Note Thank you for your research and for providing those two sources; I have added them to the article. Aeengath (talk) 13:55, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

—End of instalment— Best regards, Johannes Schade (talk) 20:56, 29 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Aeengath:. Another round

First Serbian Campaign (revisited again)

—End of instalment— Best regards Johannes Schade (talk) 08:52, 30 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Aeengath:. Another round

Dear Aeengath, I wonder whether I should fail this nomination. Would you like to go on?

I find myself changing about each sentence and could well rewrite entire paragraphs. I feel that most of the article's English is unsuitable for a Wikipedia. It should be plainer and more concise. Many sentences feel entangled and I struggle to understand. There are too many ing-forms. There are too many nouns and not enough strong meaningful verbs. The vocabulary often is too French, Latin and Greek where such high level is not warranted. The article should focus more on the subject. There is too much detail on the first world war. Only some background and Rhemen's interventions are needed. There should be a simple map where the reader can find the many locations.

Perhaps I am wrong and you need a better reviewer, especially one whose's English is first-language. Please tell me what you think.

—End of instalment— Best regards, Johannes Schade (talk) 12:43, 30 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Alright, that's quite a bit to respond to, please allow me a couple of days to address everything. Thank you Aeengath (talk) 19:02, 30 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Johannes Schade Thank you for your feedback. I'm struggling to fully understand your concerns regarding the article's adherence to Wikipedia's Good article criteria. Your comments on "too many ing-forms," "too many nouns," and references to "French, Latin, and Greek vocabulary" seem to reflect your own stylistic preferences of English rather than alignment with Wikipedia's standards. Most of the changes you requested were minor, except for the paragraph about Command of XIII Corps, which I chose to rewrite. I provided notes to most of your suggestions, even when they appeared mistaken or unclear, such as trusting unsourced foreign Wikipedia pages, confusing references, or pushing for what seemed like original research. Additionally, your suggestion to focus less on the war while adding a map of the Battle of Cer and the Serbian Campaign (1914) still has me scratching my head. Seeking a second opinion, especially from a native English speaker, will definitely help so I would appreciate if you could make the request. Thank you. Aeengath (talk) 17:09, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Aeengath:. Another round

Dear Aeengath, thanks for your frank words. Of course I am sometimes wrong. For example when I trusted Rhemen's article in the German Wikipedia. It shows my lack of experience. I had difficulties to get into the subject. I had heard only of Belgrade and Sarajevo as towns and only of the Danube and the Sava as rivers. I therefore struggled to find where all these towns and rivers are and thought it would be nice to have a map where the relevant towns and rivers are not hidden among all the others and where the Cyrillic is not shown in addition to the Latin. Unluckily the three maps I showed you are not really good enough. I lack experience with maps and do not know how to make them. I thought perhaps you could. It is true that maps are not common in biographies.

I do of course agree with you that most of my proposed changes are trivial. It is nevertheless the reviewers duty to report them. Some reviewers will fail a nomination when they find themselves spending too much time on such trivia.

When I make suggestion that look like original research, I try to indicate nice to haves information, hoping that you can find the needed citations. It is not nomaly the reviewers job to find them.

With regard to style, concise is prescribed for GA in criterion 1a, as you well know. I have myself written not concise enough in Wikipedia until quite recently. Plain English is not prescribed but recommended. See the essay Wikipedia:Use plain English. Quite obviously French, Greek and Latin cannot always be avoided in English, and are de rigeur in some technical writing. However, they can make things hard to understand, for example for a foreigner like me.

To give you an example of what I think fails the concise requirement "was designated for deployment in the Valjevo region". I had to look up "designated". Its main meaning is "mark out and make known", which does not seem to be what you mean. It is also an example of a weak (or light) verb with a noun, used instead of a strong meaningful verb. A weak verb typicalle causes a lengthy construction that fails "concise". You might have said something like "was to occupy Valjevo".

I asked for a second opinion. I lack experiance with second opinions and have never done this before. You could of course have done it yourself and that would have been the usual procedure. We will see what comes of it. The second opinion has the disadvantage that the wikipedian who gives it is in no way rewarded for the effort. Whereas, if I would fail the nomination, the new reviewer would benefit by increasing his or her review count, thereby increasing the chance to have his or her own nomination reviewed.

@Johannes Schade In my view, this level of detail might be better suited for a featured article (FA) nomination rather than a GA. However, I could be wrong. You have put in a tremendous amount of work, and I am sincerely grateful for your efforts. I wouldn't want you to feel cheated if another reviewer were to receive credit for your hard work. Therefore, I think it's best to withdraw the request for a second opinion and instead fail the nomination. I will continue refining the article outside of the review format, incorporating some of your comments. I am certainly not chasing GA counts and I'm fine with its current B-Class. Thanks again! Aeengath (talk) 11:04, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Command of XIII Corps (revisited)

First Serbian Campaign (revisited again)

The nominator requested a second opinion because the reviewer's English is 2nd language (German). The reviewer's suggestions are often needless or make things worse. They often reflect the reviewer's (bad) English style rather than any GA criteria. In addition the reviewer's requested additions or deletions are nonsense (due to his lack of understanding of the subject matter).

—End of instalment— Best regards, Johannes Schade (talk) 19:03, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Johannes Schade Thanks for your feedback. Just to clear things up, I didn't ask for a second opinion because English isn't your first language but more for getting a different perspectives to make the article better. I don't think your suggestions are always unnecessary or make things worse, I looked at each one carefully, though we might not always agree on what to change. And about the parts you mentioned, like the English style and the vocabulary, I found them a bit confusing so I'm just trying to understand better. I'm all for making the article better together. If there's anything specific you think we should change or discuss further, I'm open to hearing it. Thank you Aeengath (talk) 12:33, 7 April 2024 (UTC) edited Aeengath (talk) 13:15, 8 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Sick[edit]

Dear Aeengath. I fell sick and are at the hospitle. I will go on as soon as I can. Johannes Schade (talk) 21:58, 10 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Johannes Schade, I’m so sorry to hear that you’re not feeling well and that you’re at the hospital. Please take the time you need to recover, and don’t worry about wikipedia right now!. Your health comes first, wishing you a speedy recovery. Aeengath (talk) 06:43, 13 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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