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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 Karanacs 17:50, 28 October 2009 [1].

Inner German border

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Nominator(s): ChrisO (talk) 23:16, 14 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
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November 9th 2009 is the 20th anniversary of a hugely important historical event - the fall of the Berlin Wall and the opening of the border between East and West Germany. During August-September 2009 I went to Germany and travelled nearly the full length of the former border, taking a large number of photographs and doing a lot of on-the-ground research over the course of several weeks. At the same time I rewrote and greatly expanded the inner German border article to provide a comprehensive overview of the history, structure, operation and eventual fall of the Iron Curtain in Germany.

The article has already been through a peer review courtesy of the military history WikiProject. In view of the short time between now and November 9th, which would be the ideal day to feature this article on the Main Page, I've decided to forgo the A-class review stage and skip directly to a Featured Article review. I'd be grateful for comments. -- ChrisO (talk) 23:16, 14 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Closing note: This candidate has been promoted, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FAC/ar, and leave the {{FAC}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Karanacs (talk • contribs) 17:54, October 28, 2009


  • Support – not just FA status, but I believe one of our very best FAs. Well written, looks superbly researched, and truly encyclopedic in scope. (Encyclopædia Britannica has nothing like this on this topic.) Getting it on the main page on Nov. 9 would be a bonus. --JN466 23:39, 14 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support this is a superb job. As Jayen wrote above, featuring this article on the main page on Nov 9 would be fantastic. I first read this in the assessment process at the Germany project, where it sat in the backlog for a while (we were 57 articles behind); then I thought it well researched, documented, illustrated, maps, photos, diagrams, and well written. Since then, the article has undergone Military History peer review, and has improved even over its initial shape, which was very good. It is long, but a fascinating article to read. I fully support. I'm sure a few issues will come up; the editor has been diligent in attending to details and quibbles etc., to date, so I'm sure he will continue this cooperation. Auntieruth55 (talk) 01:16, 15 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support -- this is the best FAC I've ever read. The writing is excellent, the subject is compelling, and the citations seem to be plentiful and accurate. Prost! Coemgenus 16:40, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - just a quick point: per MoS, subheadings should not begin with "The". Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 01:26, 15 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I've never really understood the rationale for that part of the MoS... However, I've got rid of "The" from the subheadings. -- ChrisO (talk) 01:43, 15 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - This represents Wikipedia at its best - excellent! Just a couple of minor niggles: Firstly, in the lead reference is made to 'electrified alarms', which doesn't quite sound right to me - perhaps 'alarmed fences' or something along those lines? Also, I notice some inconsistency in the way translation from German to English is shown. The majority of text is displayed German (English), but I noticed several instances of English (German). Just my opinions, of course, and even with those minor isses I'm more than happy to Support this FAC. DB 103 245-7 Talk 00:13, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I've taken out "electrified". I'll review the German/English thing - most of the inconsistencies have already been tidied up but I've retained a few German-first bits for stylistic reasons. -- ChrisO (talk) 07:05, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Fifelfoo

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  • Support: 1c. Amazing 1c. Also the most beautiful reference handling I've seen in a while, of some of the most beautiful research I've seen on Wiki in a while. Very Very Very Strong Approval of the work. Decline09:29, 26 October 2009 (UTC) Its a great article. If the article nominator agrees with my points, I'm happy for them to <strike> my points as they fix. If the article nominator contests or disagrees with my points, I'd rather they didn't touch that section of my text, and we could debate it below the entire list. Diff walking confirms the version I worked off was [This version] due to the timestamp on the print job. (2 hours of source reading...) Fifelfoo (talk) 01:56, 15 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    fixits (1c polishing / suggestions)09:29, 26 October 2009 (UTC)
    1. Being actioned 01:59, 26 October 2009 (UTC) For consideration: General style. As a history article I strongly feel all works referred to in notes should be referenced in the references. Consider splitting Primary and Secondary sources within references. Add the following to References (other work parenthetically behind citation). Consider a Selected Bibliography for works of direct relevance.
      McDougal(undated)Youth (supply date). The Associated Press. The Record. Arendt1968Totalitarianism. Bailey1983Along (Just checking is the poor fellow really called Bailey Bailey?). Weinberg1995World. Encyclopedia of the United Nations and international agreements. (Specify what the 1 stands for). CIA World Factbook. Pence2008Socialist. Gress1985Peace. Koch1989West. Loth2004Europe (Possible textbook / possible monograph, please check). Berdahl1999Where. The Times. Stokes2000Constructing. Harrison2003Driving. The Manchester Guardian. Maddrel2006Spying. McAdams1985East. Judt1988DDR. Koop1996Den. Kawka2003Regional (See below for correct citation of this work). August1999Along. Lapp1986Frontdienst. Bachman1981Grenzer. The Age (is that the Melbourne Age? Might be multiple papers, need to specify location). Los Angeles Times. Allinson2000Politics. Der Turm Grenzturm Kühlungsborn (see below). Schneider1992German. Display materials (Cite the Museum, translate the Museum's title if its informative). Geschichte Ostseegrenzturm Kühlungsborn. Dennis2000Rise. BBC News website. Berliner Morgenpost. Lockwood2003Europe. Moncourt2009Red (also a primary source, see below). Scotland on Sunday. Gordon1988East. Nelson1972Germany. Christian Science Monitor. Morris1997Fifty (Primary). Sunday Telegraph (which, location data please). The Washington Post. Childs1989SED. Pohl2000Farewell. St. Petersburg Times (please specify location in the fn). K.-H. W v. Germany. The Independent. Deutsche Welle. Neues Deutschland. Ladd1998Ghosts. Ladd2004Companion. Meyer2009Year (extensively repeat cited, ought to be in bibliography even if you reject general bibliography concept). Sebasteyen2009Revolution. Boston Globe. Adam2005Germany. Fröhling2007Ick (possible primary source). Time. St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Freytay1996Germany's. UPI (I don't know this press agency, please list it in full if you go with the bibliography). The Week In Germany (see below). Austin American-Statesman. Independent On Sunday.
      Jayen's proposal at #Proposal: re-organisation of references below should resolve this. -- ChrisO (talk) 21:30, 20 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    2. For resolution: Some references have location of publication, some don't... I note to the right only sources in the bibliography, sources in the footnotes I haven't had the opportunity (time cost) to note (i.e., Baker2004Berlin versus Buchholz1994Inner-german.) Fix these to have locations: Baker2004Berlin, Childs2001Fall, Dale2005Routledge, Gleye1991Behind, Hertle2007Berlin, Jarausch1994Rush (Due to being OUP US), Schweitzer1995Politics, Stacy1984US (Unless USAMHO is part of a research university with a single publication location, then reference the university and the location will be "obvious"), Weber2004Germany. Guardian Weekly. GDR Monitor 1979 (see below). Northnagle1990Building. Reuters. The Prescott Courier (location data would be required). Sunday Star-News (location data would be required). 00:09, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
      Has been actioned 01:59, 26 October 2009 (UTC) More on locations, regarding Allinson2000Politics, you cite the location even though the university's location is obvious. You need to pick one of three styles:
      1. No location data supplied (You will make me very unhappy)
      2. Location data supplied for non obvious locations, non-widely known publishers, OUP publishing in the US, Routledge (two Englishes problem), but not supplied for obvious locations New York Times, Manchester University Press
      3. All sources location data supplied
        This should now be resolved. I've adopted the second approach, more or less. Does this need to be done for all of the newspapers? I can see the rationale for newspapers which share names with newspapers elsewhere (e.g. the Telegraph) but as far as I know the other newspapers' names are non-overlapping. -- ChrisO (talk) 23:47, 16 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        Newspapers should only really be for cases where the names are common across locations. One exception (of course), The Times is always The Times that is published in London. Fifelfoo (talk) 03:59, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        OK. In that case I think I've covered them all. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:57, 20 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    3. For resolution: Books in Series, no Series information given
      1. Buchholz1994 is a chapter in a book in series (Volume 3), where is the series information (Series Editor, Series Title, series in superseries etc.)?
        Added series editor and series name. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:57, 20 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      2. Rottman2008Berlin is an Osprey, Osprey are often books in series, if so, where is the series information?
        Added. -- ChrisO (talk) 23:42, 16 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    4. fn70 is a note, all other footnotes have been references. consider separating notes and citations?00:09, 22 October 2009 (UTC) (only consider on this one)
    5. For consideration: Missing Translators in citations00:09, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
      Could you clarify what you mean by this one? -- ChrisO (talk) 23:42, 16 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      For translated works, its normal to include the name of the translator. e.g.: LastGerman, FirstGerman, "Book about Germany," trans. English_Translator, Location: Publisher, date. Fifelfoo (talk) 03:52, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      I've been struggling to find anything that applies to in this article. I've added a translator's name to the current citation 172 (the "Agitator's Notebook" quotation. There is no translator for the current citation 65, the "Attention Demarcation Line" leaflet, since that was originally printed in English. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:57, 20 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Decline causing (1c breaking) 09:29, 26 October 2009 (UTC) (so happy to strike that!)
    1. Has been actioned, bugs reported to Template authors Chapters in collections without editors / maintext author cited AND/OR incorrect citation of chapter from monograph self-authored. Please refer to footnote 243 where you cite it right except you don't indicate if the Editor is an Editor, Author, Translator.
      1. Baker2004Berlin is a chapter from a larger work. Why isn't the larger work's author or editor listed? If the larger work is by Baker, why is the chapter listed?
      2. Lockwood2003Europe. Same issue.
        Editor name added. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:57, 20 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      3. Gordon1988East. Same issue
        Editor name added. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:57, 20 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      4. Childs1989SED. Same issue.
      5. Pohl2000Farewell.
        For Baker, Childs and Pohl, editor names are already in the citation templates (as editor1, editor2 etc.), but they're not displaying. Can anyone help? -- ChrisO (talk) 20:57, 20 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        Checked Template talk:Cite book work around is either to use editor= both names OR, editor1-last = last editor1-first = first. Will be willing to fill that in if you give the okay below on cites.Fifelfoo (talk) 23:56, 21 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    2. Being actioned 01:59, 26 October 2009 (UTC) Citation of Primary Sources contained in other works, and quotations from other works.
      Primary Sources, and quotations of Primary Sources cited from other works should be cited so that both the Primary Source and Citing Work can be fully identified by future researchers for use.
      1. Schweitzer1995Politics is a book of documents. Footnote 20 at the time I printed (Schweitzer, p. 50) does not indicate the document cited, or the chapter cited if not a document. This failing is serious. It is present at footnote 15, page 59, where you miscite Schweitzer in full given he's in the bibliography, and still don't name the document. fn15 should be "FRD. Basic Law. Article 1. in Schweitzer, p. 59." I can't tell you for footnote 20, because the source isn't named.
        Fn 15 is a citation from the Basic Law which is quoted in the course of a commentary by Schweitzer. I've made the source clearer in the citation. Fn 20 is not an original document, it's Schweitzer's commentary. I'm open to suggestions about how fn 20 should be formatted; do I need to give the full bibliographic details a second time? -- ChrisO (talk) 20:22, 15 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        Never mind, it turns out I'd made a significant factual error in citing Schweitzer. I've removed that citation and the accompanying sentences altogether. The remaining Schweitzer citations reference his commentary, not primary documents. -- ChrisO (talk) 00:22, 17 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      2. Miscite, "Harrison2003Driving." should be Joseph Stalin (orally) quoted by Harrison, Hope Millard (2003)... p. 240 (footnote). If Harrison cites a source in their footnote, it should be Joseph Stalin in [source] quoted by Harrison, ... p. 240 (footnote).
        OK, changed. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:22, 15 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      3. Miscite, "Judt1988DDR." Its a book of documents, a primary source book, and you're seriously expecting me to believe that this is an edited chapter at page 437 by the chief editor? Please cite the primary source document being quoted here correctly.
        The footnote doesn't refer to a primary source document. The source is a commentary accompanying a primary source document; the commentary is what's being cited, not the document. I've amended the citation to make the source clearer. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:22, 15 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      4. Moncourt2009Red is a documentary book. Please cite the documents or the introduction. And a primary source cannot carry that kind of statement, its non obvious, its the result of a historian's research... unless its a primary source Government statement. Which is why I want the Primary source in question cited correctly so I can judge if this is OR or SYN or not.
        I'm not sure I understand your objection here. Once again the source is a commentary, not a primary document. If primary source material is being cited then I will cite it as such, but where material is being sourced from a particular historian or commentator, it's that person who's being cited. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:22, 15 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        If its general commentary, then its in an Introduction, no? Last, First ed. "Introduction" in Documents about Ghastly Times, Location: Publisher, year. !!!!
      5. Potential OR / SYN due to inappropriate uses of Primaries
        Since the above sources are all commentaries rather than primary sources, I think this point is probably moot. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:22, 15 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        Yay! !!!!
      6. CIA World Factbook cannot support, "The Soviets responded in October 1949 with the establishment of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), a highly centralised communist dictatorship organised on Stalinist lines." at the highest level of reliable sourcing. That's a historical/political judgement (even if trivially true, I could go and dig up my DDR sources...)
        Removed the source and reworded the line as a more straightforward chronological statement, sourced to a different work. -- ChrisO (talk) 00:05, 24 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      7. fn227 Not a full citation. Who is August? Do you mean "August, Oliver (1999). Along the Wall and Watchtowers. Harper Collins. p. 28. ISBN 002570432." ?? But August isn't in your bibliography, so you can't use shorthand. Plus its Ben Bradshaw (BBC) [orally, in a recorded form, what?] quoted in "August, Oliver... 432."
        OK, I've added August to the bibliography and linked from the citation. Does that work?. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:22, 15 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    3. Being 01:59, 26 October 2009 (UTC) actioned and beautiful work doing so 09:29, 26 October 2009 (UTC) Citation formatting or completeness issues that break 1c
      General fixits which prevent me from approving due to the problematic nature of these
      1. Encyclopedia of the United Nations and international agreements. (Specify what the 1 stands for). Additionally, the pages the primary document covers should be cited before the page being referenced, i.e. "pp. 100–120: p. 114."
        Title amended to specify volume. No primary source is being cited - the citation is of an encyclopedia entry (i.e. a commentary) authored by the compilers. The encyclopedia itself is not a collection of primary documents. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:22, 15 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      2. McDougal(undated)Youth. Supply date.
        Done. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:22, 15 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      3. Grenzer is miscited at 64. Not an appropriate short reference.
        Here is the referenced document, a synopsis of the film published by its distributor, PROGRESS. How would you suggest formatting the citation? -- ChrisO (talk) 20:22, 15 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        Synopsis of "Film", Studio (Studio), date? Or in Author Year. Studio (Year). Synopsis of "Title"? Fifelfoo (talk) 03:52, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        Reformatted as: "Synopsis of Grenzer (Filmstudio der National Volksarmee, 1981, dir. Reiner Bachmann, Jochen Hoffmann). Progress Film-Verleih, Berlin. Retrieved 6 August 2009." The synopsis appears to be undated. -- ChrisO (talk) 22:04, 20 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      4. Kawka2003Regional (fn 58) is incorrectly cited. Suspect non reliable source as not standard academic publication mode. loaded PDF: Link is dead. Try instead: Kawka, Richard. "Regional Development along the Former Inner-German Border after Unification (Preliminary Version) " Jyväskylä, Finland: European Regional Science Association Conference 2003 Finland, not peer-reviewed, ERSA paper number: ersa03p245.
        Done. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:22, 15 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      5. Ministerium für Bundesangelegenheiten, Vertriebene und Flüchtlinge is miscited at 65 according to the style you've generally been using. Also, the title should be rendered translated AND original.
        There is no "original" (by which I presume you mean German) title. The leaflet was published in English, not German. I've reformatted the citation for consistency. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:22, 15 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      6. fn67 Berdahl is cited in short format, not contained in bibliography.
        Now added. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:22, 15 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      7. fn120: Should be "Bayerische Grenzpolizei, 1968 report [or the real title of the report], quoted in... 87."
        Done. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:22, 15 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      8. fn128 that's not how you cite law.
        How would you suggest citing this? -- ChrisO (talk) 20:22, 15 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        Took me ages to locate (from lack of trying) but German_legal_citation... for bonus points can you supply the German original title of the DDR law? Fifelfoo (talk) 09:29, 26 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      9. fn140 Sunday Telegraph, location data essensial.
        Now added. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:22, 15 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      10. fn153 Glaye is misspelt. Its in the biblio but cited once. This looks like a primary. Thus this looks like OR.
        I'm not sure I understand your point here; he's explaining the restrictions imposed on East Germans visiting the West, in the course of a commentary contrasting the difficulties experienced by East Germans crossing the border versus the relative ease that he enjoyed as an American resident in East Germany. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:22, 15 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        Biographies are generally considered Primary sources, as they talk about the personal experience of the Author? Fifelfoo (talk) 03:52, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        OK, I see what you mean now. In this particular case, the biography first talks about the personal experience of the author in crossing from East Germany to the West and back again; he then goes on to summarise what others have said about their personal experiences (not his!) as East Germans visiting the West. I think that would count as a secondary source, since he is relaying information second-hand, not describing something that happened to him at first-hand. -- ChrisO (talk) 23:48, 20 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      11. fn166 quoting a biography for proof, okay, but its unclear if the biography supports the practice, or abhors it. (poor writing, unattributed opinion)
        Again I'm not sure exactly what the objection is here. The source is as much a history of the Cold War as a biography. The specific passage being quoted is historical, not biographical, and is a straightforward piece of reportage that does not make any personal judgments: "West German public opionion, on the other hand, was sharply divided about the morality of these transactions. Some denounced them as an infamous trafficking in human beings, some hailed them as acts of pure humanitarianism, and others quietly welcomed them for the links that they forged between the two Germanys." I've amended the wording in the article slightly to match the source more closely. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:22, 15 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      12. fn169 Ritter in bibliography, but cited in full here. Different capitalisation, different punctuation of citation in title. actioned 02:28, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
        Fixed. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:22, 15 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      13. fn170 unacceptable. Seriously unacceptable. Title only is not sufficient. Please supply author and provenance data.
        I couldn't get hold of the original copy again (some bad luck - it's being recatalogued) so I've re-sourced it to another work which says the same thing. -- ChrisO (talk) 22:04, 24 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      14. Northnagle1990Building is not in your common citation format, please fix to Author (date) Title format like the rest. actioned 02:28, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
        Fixed. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:22, 15 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      15. fn173 Which Daily Telegraph? (Yes there's a weblink, but which?) actioned 02:28, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
        Location added. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:22, 15 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      16. fn179 Earlier you used "The Associated Press" here only "Associated Press" decide. actioned 02:28, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
        The Associated Press Stylebook says "the capitalized article is part of the formal name" of the AP, so I've changed it to "The Associated Press" throughout.
      17. fn184 No newspaper listed in citation. Please fix. actioned 02:28, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
        Fixed. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:22, 15 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      18. fn197 Not how you cite an archive. "The incident prompted students from Braunschweig to erect a sign on the border protesting the killing." starts to feel close to OR for me
        So I went out and fixed it myself! :) Fifelfoo (talk) 09:29, 26 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      19. fn198 Not how you cite a newspaper. Supply the newspaper's name, for example. actioned 02:28, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
        Fixed. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:22, 15 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      20. fn199 Newspaper's name missing. ... actioned 02:28, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
        Fixed. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:22, 15 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      21. fn201 Already in bibliography, why cite in full here. My bad. My eyes must have gone 02:28, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
        If you're referring to the Ladd citation (Ladd, Brian (2004). The companion guide to Berlin...), I'm a bit puzzled by this since there's only one instance of it in the text and it's not in the bibliography. Were you thinking of something else? -- ChrisO (talk) 23:55, 20 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      22. Meyer2009Year (extensively repeat cited, ought to be in bibliography even if you reject general bibliography concept) actioned 02:28, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
        Moved to bibliography per suggestion. -- ChrisO (talk) 23:50, 16 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      23. fn218 citation breaks style, you otherwise cite Childs (Year). Actually, decide this for all of them, there's only one Child's text, why cite the year here for it? Why not cite the year for everyone / no-one unless necessary? actioned 02:28, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
        There are actually two Childs works, one from 1989 (cited only once) and the other from 2001. It's necessary to differentiate between them to avoid confusion (this came up in the peer review, and citing the second work with a parenthetical date seemed like the best solution). If you have an alternative suggestion I'm happy to consider it. -- ChrisO (talk) 23:40, 16 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        If there are two works, author only short citations should include years for both Author (1999) and Author (2000) for example. I'll be rechecking the article later in the week to go through striking my issues, so I'll see how you've solved things then! Fifelfoo (talk) 03:52, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      24. fn243 editor's name incorrectly spaced, editor's status (author/ editor) not indicated actioned 02:28, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
        Incorrectly spelled too as it turned out, but all now sorted out. -- ChrisO (talk) 23:40, 16 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      25. fn244 A weekly without articles? please cite the article and the article's author. actioned 02:28, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
        I've added the article title, but no author is listed. It's solely attributed to the German Information Center in New York. -- ChrisO (talk) 23:40, 16 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        That's fine, some newspapers are corporately authored Fifelfoo (talk) 03:52, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    4. The Museum Citation Issue. Sooooo happy we got this done Fifelfoo (talk) 09:29, 26 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      Resolved Fifelfoo (talk) 09:29, 26 October 2009 (UTC) If citing a Museum: The object cited (if referring to a Museum description, also cite that its the description "Guard Post Alpha, Museum's description of function", the Museum's name, and translated name, the exhibit's name (if a Museum with multiple exhibitions) and translation, if the object is on permanent exhibit, if on temporary exhibit the dates exhibited when referenced, the date referenced by the researcher (date of attendance), the location of the Museum, the authority controlling the Museum. I am willing to debate this below, but I feel very strongly that I cannot call your references to these materials reliable when cited as is. (I believe if correctly referenced, they would be reliable, though some may be PRIMARY).[reply]
      1. fn78 "Der Turm" is unacceptable. No date, no provenance, no internal reference, no author. More context.
      2. fn82 Display Materials is similarly unacceptable. More context for this stuff. Is it a permanent exhibition, etc. etc. etc.
      3. fn93 Geschichte Ostseegrenzturm Kühlungsborn. Same.
      4. fn118. Display materials Gedenkstätte Point Alpha. Is this part of a museum or a maintained section? Cite the museum not just the location point.
      5. fn139 Museum citation issue.
      6. fn142 Museum citation issue.
      7. fn148 improper citation. Museum citation issue.
      8. fn168 Museum citation issue.
      9. fn188 Museum citation issue.
      10. fn206 Museum citing issue
        This is hopefully resolved now. The few remaining items cited to museums are now cited to specific named works published by those museums. Just as well I made a copy of everything while taking notes at the museums! -- ChrisO (talk) 22:04, 24 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    For debate
    1. Resolved 01:59, 26 October 2009 (UTC) How close to being PRIMARY is the extensive use of Newspapers, Objects of the Past, Biography and Recollection, and occasional use of Primary Sources books. In history PRIMARY leads to OR. Only secondary sources can make judgement calls, and in most cases, interpret facts. Primaries in history should be used like photographs or diagrams, illustrative, but with the actual claims supported by a secondary of highest reliability. Newspaper articles of, or close to the time, are in history considered primary sources. In relation to historical articles, contemporary newspapers are not the highest quality reliable source. One reason why I want clearer citations is so that I can read the article and determine if the weight of the narrative is coming out of the reliable secondary sources or out of the primary sources / non-highest reliability sources. Fifelfoo (talk) 01:56, 15 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
As regards museum objects, is there any backup for this long list in WP guidelines at all or have you just made it all up? Featured articles about objects in museums often do not give all this information, and the inclusion of some of it - such as whether the object is on display at a particular moment - is actually undesirable. To reference such an object, all that is normally needed is the owner, the descriptive title as they give it, the accession/catalogue number, and a link or reference to any printed or online catalogue including it, or other book etc it appears in. Museum objects are often moved around, taken on or off display, & where it was at a particular moment is of little interest, or use for referencing purposes. If, as seems to be the case, we are just talking about museum captions or information displays rather than information contained in actual museum objects, that is more difficult, as once changed they are likely to vanish leaving no record behind, which is a problem for WP:V. It is not necessary to demand authorship; we do not do so for museum webpages, which typically give no individual author. On individual refs: "Note 78" - now 77 - on the tower is a building apparently owned by a private company for preservation & as a tourist attraction; the single piece of information being referenced is on its website, which seems fine to me, though an access date should be added. Same for 93, currently 92. Note 82, now 81, and 117, 138, 142 (118 etc above), do need more information - at the least a clearer location, even address, and some indication of ownership/status, and the date seen - or a link as with the other tower. 167, 187 & 203 are unclear - are these display materials again? Johnbod (talk) 15:45, 21 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Proposal: re-organisation of references
[edit]

I propose reorganising the references so that the Notes section only uses short refs (always consisting of author, year, page), and everything else is in the references section. We have around 125 separate references; these could be subdivided into categories such as journalistic sources, books and museum exhibits. Would this address your formatting concerns, Fifelfoo? --JN466 11:45, 17 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I support Jayen's proposal, and would be interested to hear what Fifelfoo thinks of it. -- ChrisO (talk) 00:48, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds good. Sources without authors provide difficulties, I suggest you use the next best provenance information available, either the Work title or the Publisher. Fifelfoo (talk) 11:43, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Note for reference: see also SlimVirgin's suggestion further down this page. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:20, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The bibliography isn't full yet, and periodical citations are in two different styles regarding dates. Have you decided to go with a fully populated bibliography or not? If you have, I'm happy to do the work. Fifelfoo (talk) 22:40, 21 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm currently revising the article to trim its size (see the discussion below) so I've put the bibliography/citation work on hold until the actual article content is sorted out, which should be by the end of today, hopefully. -- ChrisO (talk) 11:13, 24 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No worries. The main outstanding that I can't resolve is the Museum pieces. Am happy to work on the article to direction to help get it in on time. Fifelfoo (talk) 11:29, 24 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'll sort out the museum issue tomorrow, since some of the citations are going to be disappearing from the main article as it gets slimmed down through the course of today. If you could have a look at the remaining issues then I'd be grateful. -- ChrisO (talk) 11:40, 24 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Update: All the book references and all the new references have now been converted into "clickable short footnote + references listing" format. See Inner_German_border#Notes.
  • Some remaining housekeeping issues:
    • Some of the news articles have named authors; others do not have a named author. Should we separate them according to that criterion? At the moment they're all in one list, the ones without named authors attributed to "Staff" in the "last" field. (The reason for that being, if the "last" field isn't filled in, the publication date is displayed at the back of the ref, just before the access date if present, and that is off-putting if all other references have the publication date near the beginning).
    • What is left now is half a dozen museum sources, plus two or three oddballs. Should we start a separate section for these? Given that it is so few now, I am tempted to leave them where they are. --JN466 21:29, 25 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • I'm agnostic on this issue, but I would say that if it's not causing any problems it's probably best to leave them where they are. -- ChrisO (talk) 08:35, 26 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        I split the difference. Because they're mostly unique I mostly left them in text (except for the archival source, where a full cite would be too long). So I added an "Other" section, and I think it looks brilliant. Excellent work ChrisO and Jayen466. Fifelfoo (talk) 09:32, 26 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

MasterOfHisOwnDomain

[edit]
  • Comment: Excellent article from my first skimming over; the images in particular are fantastic. One issue:
Fortifications on the Border > Overview: I believe the diagrams shown here need to be given some explanation for Alt text. At the moment they exclude visually impaired readers. MasterOfHisOwnDomain (talk) 21:21, 15 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I've had a go at expanding these two alt texts. I'm not sure how well I've managed, and I'll revisit the texts – these diagrams are fiendishly difficult to describe in words. --JN466 01:49, 16 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It's much better than what was there before anyway, and I think you've done a good job on it. MasterOfHisOwnDomain (talk) 20:44, 16 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks very much for sorting this out, Jayen - it looks fine to me. MasterOfHisOwnDomain, are there any other issues that you feel need to be sorted? -- ChrisO (talk) 23:05, 16 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Not clinching issues, but nonetheless:
East Germany's sea border: Schutzgebiet should have a translation (as protective area) since this is done for other german terms.
Done. -- ChrisO (talk) 22:49, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Fortifications on the border > Guard dogs: While it makes for a pleasant read, the last paragraph of this section seems unnecessary in an article that is so long. If you're looking to reduce the size of the article, this would be amongst my first targets.
I think I'll leave it as it is for now, but I'm planning to create some spinoff articles in due course; it may be possible to decant this content into a spinoff article at that point. -- ChrisO (talk) 22:49, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Fair enough. MasterOfHisOwnDomain (talk)
Lead: I've made some minor changes: delinking the repeat of Berlin Wall and rewording two sentences. Please give your opinion on the rewordings, I know this can be a touchy issue in the lead. MasterOfHisOwnDomain (talk) 08:55, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That looks fine to me, thanks very much. -- ChrisO (talk) 22:49, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No problem. This is a very, very good article, and so have my Support for it to be given FA status. MasterOfHisOwnDomain (talk) 16:45, 21 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Supportive comment: As a former East German with some historical expertise, I can confirm that the topic is thouroughly covered for Wikipedia standards. No major issues are omitted, and the content is factually accurate. Once the sourcing issues are resolved, this article is going to be one of Wikipedia's finest FAs. Skäpperöd (talk) 11:47, 16 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The French Zone never reached the inner border so not really relevant to this article. ϢereSpielChequers 17:36, 16 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
WereSpielChequers is right, but for the record it was established at the same time as the other occupation zones, in May 1945. -- ChrisO (talk) 23:07, 16 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: The article looks good, but lacks German sources. An important issue still needs coverage: legally crossing the border and all procedures and equipment associated with this (leading to disputes about health issues because of high radiation exposure). Wandalstouring (talk) 13:40, 16 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I made a conscious decision to focus on English-language sources, not least because they are the most readily available to me. More fundamentally though, I try to use sources in the native language of the wiki on which I'm writing. I want English-speaking readers to be able to go away from the article and use the sources I've listed. If the information is available in English and German, I've preferentially used the English sources (for instance, relying on Rottman and Stacy for a lot of the operational detail; Ritter would be the equivalent source in German). I've used German sources only where I've not been able to find English-language equivalents.
The important issue you mention is already covered: see Inner German border#Crossing points (which mentions the "gamma guns" used by the GDR) and Inner German border#Border crossing regulations. -- ChrisO (talk) 23:18, 16 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

WereSpielChequers

[edit]
  • Query Interesting read, nice work, I've made a few tweaks, hope you like them, if not its a wiki.
I'm a bit concerned about the length as its over 200kb and that may make it difficult for some to read. Would such an article be appropriate for the mainpage?
There is around 200Kb of wikicode, but it's significantly inflated by the complex formatting - citations, alt tags, image code etc. The actual text length is substantially less, around 168 Kb. I'm open to suggestions on this point. -- ChrisO (talk) 23:05, 16 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I've copy edited out a few bites, but I think the whole total is rising. I'd be tempted to spin out the section on the partition of Germany and have a "Main" link, also you could make more use of GDR instead of East Germany.
Some of the photos would benefit from being closer to the relevant part of the text - particularly the watch tower that was vulnerable to the wind.
If you can suggest any specific images to move, I'll take a look at them. The layout of the watchtower images was a deliberate decision, though - I put them side-by-side to facilitate an at-a-glance comparison between each type. -- ChrisO (talk) 23:05, 16 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I think the landmines, watchtowers and the British frontier service/US army galleries would all benefit from subdivision and moving to the relevant paragraph; but the most important one to my mind is that the picture of the wind vulnerable tower be on screen when you read the text about it. If you must keep the towers together you could of course move the whole gallery.
"Built in phases from 1952 to the late 1980s, the border fortifications were constructed by East Germany in response to the ever-increasing numbers of its citizens fleeing to the West." reads to me as if the numbers crossing were ever increasing until the 80s. Since that wasn't the case is a rephrase possible?
I agree that the wording was ambiguous. I've altered the line to read "the border fortifications were constructed by East Germany in response to the economic threat posed by the large-scale emigration of its citizens to the West." -- ChrisO (talk) 23:05, 16 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
"The initially secret arrangement was revealed by Rainer Barzel, the Federal Minister for All-German Affairs at the time, who wrote in his memoirs:" When did it cease to be secret? ϢereSpielChequers 18:35, 16 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The book (Auf dem Drahtseil) was published in 1978. I've noted this parenthetically in the article. -- ChrisO (talk) 23:05, 16 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I like the idea of an 11 metre tall tower constructed of sections 1" thick, but suspect that the walls were 1" thick not the sections. ϢereSpielChequers 06:59, 20 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support It's a really good read, my sense checking queries have been resolved, and I believe it to be of FA quality. I don't think maximum size is an FA criteria but I still think the size may cause some users problems. Ideally one would want the map of East Germany translated, and I have a suggestion above about positioning of photos, but I don't think that those matters would be sufficient to preclude FA status. ϢereSpielChequers 16:08, 20 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
PS What is a "Horse Dog"? ϢereSpielChequers 12:01, 22 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No idea. I presume it's a nickname, since the source (which is in English) speaks of "so-called horse dogs". -- ChrisO (talk) 16:24, 22 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for fixing the size issue. I still have a number of minor concerns above, but they don't add up to enough to preclude FA status. ϢereSpielChequers 10:00, 25 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Tony1

[edit]
  • Superb. But please fix: Tony (talk) 02:03, 20 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "deutsche–deutsche" with an en dash (not "deutsche-deutsche"), because the elements are in apposition. This is regardless of German punctuation rules.
      Fixed. -- ChrisO (talk) 09:49, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Why are "British" and "US" linked? Please see WP:LINK. Is there a more specific link for Soviet occupation zone than "Soviet"? (Maybe, maybe not.)Can we have the 's within the link for "Churchill", please? WP:LINKING shows how to do it.
      Fixed, added links to the Western and Soviet occupation zone articles. -- ChrisO (talk) 09:49, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "capitalist and communist, democratic and totalitarian"—yep, but a newbie reader might be confused that the totalitarian state was called "German Democratic Republic". Is there a word other than democratic? (Hitler was democratically elected, I recall, too.)
      Would "freely elected" work better? The "democratic" in the GDR's name was due to a quirk of Marxist ideology (same as with North Korea) - the West was said to have a system of "formal democracy" (meaning superficially free elections, but real power in the hands of capitalists) while the Communist world operated "actual democracy" (both free elections and real power in the hands of the people). Of course, the reality was rather different... -- ChrisO (talk) 01:37, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "ever-increasing"—just "increasing" might be enough, given the context?
      I've taken this out. -- ChrisO (talk) 09:43, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • The inner German border caused widespread economic and social disruption on both sides, with East Germans living in the border region suffering especially draconian restrictions." This is a fixable "with plus noun plus -ing" construction, in which the relationship between the clauses is not entirely clear and the effect a little awkward. It's additive, so "and [or just use a semicolon] East Germans living in the border region suffered ..." would be better. Same here: "with the Americans being given" ... "; the Americans were given".
    • For the first time ever, I've noticed that non-breaking spaces before the en dashes as interrupters, are skewing the placement of the dashes in display mode (to the left). Is it just my system? See "gaue", for example.
      I've tried it on three different systems at different resolutions and I can't replicate that effect. I'd be interested to know if anyone else is experiencing the same thing? -- ChrisO (talk) 01:37, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "making it easier to resupply it from the UK"—does it mean "supply British troops"? Or the civilian population?
      Both - the entire zone and its population, civilian and military. -- ChrisO (talk) 01:49, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • It was also hoped that decentralising forces in Germany would be promoted by reviving traditional provincial boundaries." Errr ... this is a little cryptic. Would it be safer to talk in terms of the convenience of piggybacking the division on top of the old administrative structures of Germany? Or something like that? (Or have I got it the wrong way around?)
      It wasn't a matter of convenience per se, as far as I understand it, since the old structures weren't reconstituted (the modern Länder have substantially different boundaries from the pre-1933 provinces). The intention was reportedly to reverse the post-1870 centralisation of Germany, which had been dominated by one state, i.e. Prussia. The complete disappearance of Prussia from the German political map was a deliberate decision which was partly implemented by splitting Prussia into different Länder and further splitting its territory between all four occupation zones. -- ChrisO (talk) 01:37, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • OK. Interestingly, the modern Länder boundaries show on Google Earth. Flying overhead along the boundary shows the hideous scarring of the landscape on the east where fences and roads were installed, and how they smoothed out the crinkly boundary in many places. Fascinating. Tony (talk) 07:33, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        The first version of the border fortifications did run along the "crinkly boundary", but that greatly lengthened the perimeter of the border fences and made it harder for the East Germans to control it. That's why they pulled the fortifications back up to several hundred metres for the final version of the border fortifications, even though it meant sacrificing valuable agricultural land. -- ChrisO (talk) 09:43, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • What, Roosevelt didn't trust the British to let US supplies in through a coastal British zone? Extraordinary.
      It wasn't a matter of trust, it was more a case of a desire for autonomy. The US didn't want to be dependent on another power for its forces' resupply. The ironic thing is that after the Berlin Airlift showed how vulnerable Western supply lines in Germany were, the US hastily arranged to use French ports to supplement Bremerhaven - precisely the scenario which the use of Bremerhaven was intended to prevent. -- ChrisO (talk) 01:37, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • So it's the British we have to thank for the large size of the GDR, is it?
      Sorry about that... -- ChrisO (talk) 01:37, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "went into effect" ... "came ...".
      Changed. -- ChrisO (talk) 10:10, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "Because of the unexpectedly rapid Allied advance"—it's OK, but watch those close repetitions. "Expected" occurs a few seconds earlier.
      Changed "expected" to "anticipated". -- ChrisO (talk) 10:10, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Each of the four powers ... was. (not were). I think I'm right, but please correct me if not. And "its", not "their"?
      No, you're right. Changed. -- ChrisO (talk) 10:10, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "where they would enjoy greater freedoms as well as improved economic prospects"—can this be rationalised? "where they would enjoy greater freedom and economic prospects".
      Changed. -- ChrisO (talk) 10:10, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "The East German government had an equally important incentive"—was it exactly equal? Apples and oranges, maybe. It works without the "false equality" in the wording.
      Reworded the line. -- ChrisO (talk) 10:10, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "There were a number of incidents of both Soviet and American troops mounting unauthorised expeditions"—noun plus -ing again (can you audit throughout? There are more ... just search for "with"). "... in which both ... mounted ...". But this one works: "The Western side did not attempt to stop people crossing from the east" ("from" is ellided").
      Reworded both lines. -- ChrisO (talk) 10:10, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "east-west"—en dash required. Please see User:Tony1/Beginners'_guide_to_the_Manual_of_Style#En_dashes.2A.
      Changed. -- ChrisO (talk) 10:10, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "spring"—see MoS on seasons (spring starts in September here).
      Changed to "first quarter". -- ChrisO (talk) 10:10, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "boundary line"? Remove second word?
      Changed to "demarcation line", the proper term for this period. -- ChrisO (talk) 10:10, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "in the way that".
      Changed "way that" to "how". -- ChrisO (talk) 10:10, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "had met the Soviet leadership", since we're going back in time from the previous paragraph?
      Changed. -- ChrisO (talk) 10:40, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "The Soviets were as alarmed by the problem as their East German protégés." Another forced equative? Exactly as alarmed?
      Reworded. -- ChrisO (talk) 10:40, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • 10 metres is 32.8 feet, not 30 feet. I like the non-use of those dreadful converters in the text, but let's not slip on the calculator. Google "Meters to feet" and it's there in a jiffy. There are other examples, too.
    • More on conversions: the MoS says to avoid the hyphen issue by recasting huge gobbledy nominal groups like An adjoining 500 m (1,500 ft) wide "protective strip" (Schutzstreifen) and a further 5 km (3 mile) wide "restricted zone" (Sperrzone) thus: An adjoining "protective strip" (Schutzstreifen) 500 m (1,500 ft) wide and a further "restricted zone" (Sperrzone) 5 km (3 mi) wide. Consistent abbreviation for converted unit, please (and it would have been "mileS" in the recasting if spelled out). Here's a bet each way: "A 500-metre (1,600 ft) wide strip" [A 500-metre (1,600 ft)-wide strip?].
      I've reworded it, see what you think now. -- ChrisO (talk) 10:40, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "After 1952, the majority left via West Berlin." Is this located too late in the para? Is it repetitive?
      Agreed, it probably is redundant. -- ChrisO (talk) 10:40, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "a variety of"—does it add anything useful?
      Fair point, I've reworded this line.
    • "for instance, not allowing their use during the night"—consider "such as during the night".
      Changed. -- ChrisO (talk) 10:40, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "delays resulted in the modernisation programme continuing well into the 1980s"—noun plus -ing.
      Reworded.
    • "East German's international isolation was rapidly ended, with the number of countries recognising the GDR rising from thirteen in 1962 to 115 by 1975". Is there a "y" missing? Noun plus -ing. Probably "13" is easier here. "Was rapidly ended" is not idiomatic, and "ended" indicates a sharp boundary, so to speak.
      Rewrote this line. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:34, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "border line" again.
      "Border line" is legitimate usage, and it's being used for a reason. The OED defines it thus: "The strip of land along the border between two countries or districts; a frontier-line; often fig., the boundary between areas, classes, etc." The term "border" by itself is ambiguous in some contexts related to the inner German border, since it can mean two things - the actual line on the map, or the border zone. In the context in which it's being used here, people living in the border zone were evicted for living too close to the border line. -- ChrisO (talk) 09:46, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • border controls are the rules for who passes legally, versus the "fortifications"? Might be unclear to some readers.
      I've reworded this line. See what you think of it now. -- ChrisO (talk) 13:36, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "257 million East German marks" sounds like pocket money compared with what they must have spent on construction and operation until then. Doesn't add up that it was the crucial disincentive for Grenze 2000.
      East Germany was completely and utterly bankrupt by that point (1988). They couldn't even maintain the existing border - they had to resort to putting cardboard cutouts in the watchtowers because they didn't have enough people to do the job. The government was spending its loans on repaying the interest from its previous loans. If I recall correctly, interest payments alone accounted for around 60% of the state budget. Even if the state hadn't collapsed in 1989, it would have suffered an economic collapse soon afterwards anyway. -- ChrisO (talk) 01:37, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "23 autobahns or national roads"—is that an "equative" or? If so, "23 autobahns (national roads)".
      No, autobahns and national roads are in two different categories. An autobahn (four lanes, high-speed traffic, limited exits) is something different from a national road (two lanes, lower-speed traffic, many exits). Perhaps "and" would work better than "or"? -- ChrisO (talk) 01:37, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "Telephone and mail communications remained open throughout, although packages and letters sent through the mail were routinely opened and telephone calls were monitored."—By both sides? Better say so if that was the case. Tension between "open" and "opened", which refer to quite different things. "operated" for the first one?
      The Stasi did the monitoring. I've reworded the line to make this clear and changed the first "open" to eliminate any repetition. -- ChrisO (talk) 13:36, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "the Czechoslovak border or the Baltic coast"—ah, so the Czech border was similar to the inner German border? Why the Baltic coast of West Germany?
      Yes, see Czechoslovakian border fortifications during the Cold War. Oddly enough, the East Germans also fortified their border with Czechoslovakia, so that on the Czech–GDR border there were two sets of border fortifications facing each other. As for the Baltic coast, I can only guess that this was to do with the economic impact that the border had on the Baltic economy. For instance, the effective loss of fishing access to East Germany's coastal waters would certainly have affected coastal towns. -- ChrisO (talk) 01:49, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • This should be a parallel construction: "were forbidden not only to build new houses but were not allowed to repair existing ones". "Ones" is not good style. And "forbidden" doesn't take "to", but "from". "were forbidden from building new houses and even from repairing existing houses."?
      Changed, though I've used "buildings" in place of the second "houses" to eliminate repetition. -- ChrisO (talk) 13:36, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "in some areas where residents were forced to leave"—remove "some".
      "Some" is correct in this context. There wasn't a total abandonment of economic activity in all evacuated areas. -- ChrisO (talk) 13:36, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • Is the intended meaning "some but not all areas where residents were forced to leave"? If so, make it unambiguous by writing "Some of the areas where ...". If you mean all such areas, remove "some". "East German troops guarded the border" doesn't mean all East German troops. It also depends on whether "the" is used. Tony (talk) 06:52, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "Grenztruppen killed on the border are hailed as heroes and their memorial in East Berlin is saluted by schoolchildren." What, schoolkids in Aachen salute this?
      Well, no... I've added "by the East German state" to make this clearer. -- ChrisO (talk) 01:37, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "led to it rejecting East Germany's claims"—noun plus -ing, erky. "its rejection of".
      I've changed this to "prompted it to reject". -- ChrisO (talk) 13:36, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "The government's public statements"—which government?
      West Germany's - I've clarified this. -- ChrisO (talk) 13:36, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • though the West Germans noted "a lot more movement on that watchtower since the nudist beach opened."—Unsure of the logic of "though".
      Agreed, I've removed the word. -- ChrisO (talk) 01:37, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • would first reach the edge of the to the restricted zone
      Fixed. -- ChrisO (talk) 13:36, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Try switching this, where you'll need the "s". No "s" in current hyphen-wanting construction: "5 kilometres (3.1 mi) wide strip of land".
      Done. -- ChrisO (talk) 13:36, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "If he made it past ...". Women did try to escape too; there's an account of it in Anna Funder's book. Try pluralising to avoid the gender thing.
      My kingdom for a gender-neutral pronoun... Changed the wording. -- ChrisO (talk) 13:36, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "they would reach the first" (not "haved reached"). Remove "situated".
      Done. -- ChrisO (talk) 13:36, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "Audible, flashing or silent alarms." This needs work. "would activate auditory, visual or ..." (What are silent alarms?). Remove "to be activated".
      I've shortened this to eliminate any confusion. There were three kinds of alarms - flashing lights (of the kind you used to see on cop cars) and sirens that were mounted on or next to the signal fence, and silent alarms located in command watchtowers that alerted the border guards without also alerting the escapee. Rather a similar system to that which banks use - press a button to alert the cops that there's a robbery in progress, but no alarm sounds inside the bank. -- ChrisO (talk) 02:00, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Again, cut the plural from units (metres) when used attributively (as an adjective before the noun).
      Switched the sentence order. -- ChrisO (talk) 13:36, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Confusion between "on the western side of the border" and "West German territory".
      I omitted the word "fence" after "border". Added. -- ChrisO (talk) 13:36, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "situation at regular"—remove the first word.
      Reworded. -- ChrisO (talk) 13:36, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "overlooked" has two, quite opposite meanings (like "sanctioned").
      Changed to "monitored". -- ChrisO (talk) 13:36, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "to enable the guards to fire out"—the "out" is unusual; English-speakers may first think it's a compound verb such as "pull out" (= withdraw, say, troops). But here it clearly means "fire outwards". Recast, possibly as "fire at anyone attempting to cross"?
      I've changed this to "to enable the guards to open fire without leaving the tower", as that's the key point. -- ChrisO (talk) 13:36, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "emplaced"—nice and Germanic, but we don't have a verb from "emplacement". Just remove it.
      Yes we do, it's standard military terminology. See [2] for many examples. The verb "emplace" is listed in the Oxford English Dictionary as a back-formation from "emplacement". The definition is: "trans. To put into a place or position. spec. To provide an emplacement for new guns." I should add that it's used more generally than just for guns (I speak here from personal experience as well as the book examples I've just given). It's from French, btw, like a great many military terms. -- ChrisO (talk) 01:37, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • 1 inch: suddenly the conversions are reversed. Remove "which was" (accessed).
      Fixed. -- ChrisO (talk) 13:36, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • In translating the German term for the types of tower, I'd use a space instead of the German hyphen.
      I disagree; the space is part of the name. Where military equipment is concerned, we do conventionally preserve hyphens (e.g. F-16 Fighting Falcon, AK-47, Soviet submarine K-19 etc.) -- ChrisO (talk) 13:36, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "controls such as remote controls" (facilities such as?). You've got subset items at the start and end: such as ... and so on.
      Reworded. -- ChrisO (talk)
    • Remove "located"; "at" does the job.
      Removed. -- ChrisO (talk) 13:36, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • BTW, "1.8 by 1.8 metres (5.9 ft × 5.9 ft) in cross-section"—yes, you do need the "s" there—it's grammatically subtle; but "1.8 by 1.8 metre (5.9 ft × 5.9 ft) cross-section".
      I've swapped the sentence order. -- ChrisO (talk) 13:36, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • cables were suspended.... This allowed the dogs to ..."
      Changed. -- ChrisO (talk) 16:48, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • mixture ... mixed. BTW, "various" is OK there, IMO.
      Changed. -- ChrisO (talk) 16:48, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "The fall of ..." para: one or two "that"s could be dropped.
      Done. -- ChrisO (talk) 16:48, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "In reality, the dogs were said to be quite docile." But in reality, the dogs were branded "dangerous" too. If you're looking for bits to trim, this is it.
      Good point! Changed. -- ChrisO (talk) 16:48, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "The Kolonnenweg was usually located between the control strip and the watchtowers, located further back." Try to pick up those repetitions. "was usually located futher back between".
      Reworded to clarify, since I could see some potential confusion. -- ChrisO (talk) 16:48, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "alongside ... along". It's a parallel construction, so here a repetition is appropriate.
      OK.
    • "was constructed in parallel to the waterways"—remove "in". Remove "in places".
      Done. -- ChrisO (talk) 16:48, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "being policed"—remove one word.
      Done. -- ChrisO (talk) 16:48, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Outer fences gallery: could be larger.
    • "were eventually installed. It was given various descriptions" Clash of number. Both plural?
      I've reworded this line: "Some 60,000 SM-70s were eventually installed. The SM-70 was given various descriptions." Does that work better? -- ChrisO (talk) 16:48, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "and so on" is very informal. "such as ..."
      Reworded. -- ChrisO (talk) 16:48, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • physically objects
      Fixed. -- ChrisO (talk) 16:48, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • escapees sought to escape
      That's kind of an obvious statement, isn't it? :-) Fixed. -- ChrisO (talk) 16:48, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "This included ... and so on."
    • Ensure ... ensuring.
    • "work details" ... "work units"? Would be easier to read; I first thought it referred to work schedules/records.
      Standard military terminology - you're detailed to a task. I think "work detachments" is better, on reflection. -- ChrisO (talk) 01:37, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Caption: most readers won't know that "Bundes" means West German. The file description should be borrowed: "a West German Aerospatiale Alouette II helicopter patrolling the East German border. East German border guards are in the background." Well, the guards can be seen, but not yet in the article. Make it bigger? Why is it tiny and paired with the second-rate dog pic? It's a great pic—dramatic and symbolic on more than one level.
      The East Germans are only just visible even at 800 pixels across, so enlarging the picture - say to 400 px - wouldn't work. I've added "the West German side" to the caption to make it clearer. As for the Bundesgrenzschutz, I've used the convention of using the German names for state organisations - e.g. Stasi, Luftwaffe, Wehrmacht etc. The pictures under "West Germany" are paired on the basis of one picture representing each organisation - the BGS and BZV for the first pair, the US Army and the BFS for the second pair. I don't have pictures of the BGP or the British Army on the border but am hopeful of being able to get some in due course. -- ChrisO (talk) 01:37, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • OK. Pity there's no way of enticing readers to hit the high-res button. Still could be larger than it was. The MoS no longer implies that editors should normally use tiny default pics. You might consider getting rid of the dog pic, which is ... unremarkable. Looking at the WP.de version, there are pics there that are more interesting than that dog pic. Tony (talk) 11:38, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • 404 miles: why the inversion of units?
      Inverted the other way.
    • "with soldiers being issued weapons"—and soldiers were
      Done. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:34, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "Frigid" is an odd word. Consider "distant"?
      It's a play on words - "Cold War", "frigid". You reckon it doesn't work? -- ChrisO (talk) 01:37, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "aggressively bellicose"—Bellicosity is aggressive. This is from a thesaurus? <grin>
      Point taken! Removed "aggressively". -- ChrisO (talk) 16:48, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "It was fairly permeable throughout the Cold War," ... err, confusing.
      Rewritten to make it clearer (I hope!). -- ChrisO (talk) 20:34, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Hamburg-Berlin: en dash.
      Done. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:34, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • workplace; Their
      Fixed. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:34, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "60 DM fee"—so it had to be in West German currency?
      Apparently so. This was of course not easy to get in East Germany, as the East German mark was not convertible, but then again the GDR government wanted to make it difficult for people to go to the west. -- ChrisO (talk) 01:37, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "The odds were against applications being successful"—noun plus -ing. "against successful applications".
      Changed. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:34, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Remove "occurring".
      Done. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:23, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • accords, Accords. Which is it to be?
      Capitalised for consistency. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:23, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "15–25,000 exit visas"—huge range! See MoS on this.
      That's what the cited source says, I'm afraid. I can't be more specific than the source. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:23, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "it also ran"—remove "also". There are a lot of alsos in this text; most, unusually, are not redundant.
      Done. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:23, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "visa; however, it also ...". Not enough semicolons.
      Reworded the lines, since I felt they were a bit clunky. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:23, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • The MoS says to recast the wording to avoid a sentence-initial numeral: "33,755 political prisoners". There are at least two more further down.
      Reworded. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:23, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Awkwardly long sentence: "A further 2,087 prisoners being released to the West under an amnesty in 1972. 215,019 people, including 2,000 children cut off from their parents, were allowed to leave East Germany to rejoin their families."
      Not sure what happened there, I suspect it may have been copyedited after I wrote it. I've reworded it somewhat now.
    • Can't it be "more than 3.4 billion DM"?
      Good idea, done. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:23, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • The "attempted" category means "attempted and not successful"? Successful escapes were presumably preceded by an attempt.
      Removed unnecessary "successful". -- ChrisO (talk)
    • "as he tried to dismantle an SM-70 anti-personnel mine. When it was buried his body was described merely as"—the mine was buried?
      Reworded. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:23, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "also died": remove "also".
      Done. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:23, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "frequently-used": see MoS.
      Removed the words, they didn't add much of value anyway. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:23, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "communist"—no capital C unless part of a title.
      Decapitalised. -- ChrisO (talk)
    • "not least because West Germany had secretly offered a much-needed hard currency loan of DM 500 million ($250 million)." ... dependent on the opening of Hungary's border? Otherwise ... hard to fathom.
      I've reworded this line. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:23, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • that it would be opened with "immediately, without delay",—remove "with"?
      Removed. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:23, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "nor was it meant to apply to tourists"—add "East German" before "tourists".
      Reworded. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:23, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "40 miles" .... conversion chaos.
      Resolved. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:23, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Check W/w for West/Western. Either is fine, but consistent please.
      Capitalised for consistency. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:23, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • point on the Hamburg–Berlin autobahn (two fixes)
      Fixed, I think. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:23, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "With the CDU being in charge". "with the Western Deutsche Mark replacing the East German mark". "with all but 2,000 of them being dismissed". "led to it becoming a haven for wildlife". Erky.
      Resolved with various rewordings. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:23, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "rather"—too subjective for WP.
      Another editor added it, I've removed it. -- ChrisO (talk) 02:10, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "within five months of the border opening"—could be a gap in the fence.
      Now "border being opened". -- ChrisO (talk) 02:09, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "Very little now remains"—remove "now", which is unWPian.
      Done. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:23, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Not a single mention of Anna Funder's book Stasiland? Could be an external link from something on this page? Tony (talk) 07:55, 17 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      Stasiland is a great read, but I don't feel comfortable using it as a source - it's a very subjective work, doesn't cite its own sources (as far as I recall) and - again as far as I recall, since it's a while since I read it - doesn't really say that much about the border. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:23, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • If memory serves, there's a couple of anecdotes in it about escapes, attempted escapes, and legitimate travel to the West. The article as it stands has quite a good quote from Jan Morris about the experience of crossing the border; perhaps there's someone quoted in Stasiland (or something like it) who could be quoted to show the "Eastern" perspective on the same journey? Shimgray | talk | 15:56, 20 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Eubulides

[edit]

The existing alt text is of very high quality (thanks!) but there are some problems:

Eubulides (talk) 02:11, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A quick re-review showed that alt text is now missing from two images, namely File:BGS-Hubschrauber Alouette II.jpg and File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-1989-1106-405, Plauen, Demonstration vor dem Rathaus.jpg; could you please fix that? Eubulides (talk) 06:29, 25 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The alt text was in the first image but not displaying due to a formatting error, and I've added text for the second image. -- ChrisO (talk) 09:36, 25 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Dhatfield

[edit]

Conditional support. See reviewed vote in light of article size issues Dhatfield (talk) 18:48, 24 October 2009 (UTC).[reply]

I'm not sure if I have overstepped the contribution line for a valid vote - as always, closing admin's discretion.

Brilliant use of images and I sincerely hope that one day all Wikipedia articles will be as well researched as this one.

I feel pretty nervous making comments on style in the shadow of a giant like Tony1.

Focussing on the summary:

  • Is it necessary or desirable to give the abbreviation and colloqial term? As in "(GDR, East Germany)".
    Yes, I think so. The terms "GDR" and "East German" are used in many places in the text. Acronyms should always be spelled out the first time they're used, and to someone unfamiliar with the formal names of the two countries it's not immediately obvious that "German Democratic Republic" = "East Germany". -- ChrisO (talk) 22:15, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • "It was guarded around the clock by 50,000 armed East German border guards who faced tens of thousands of West German, British and U.S. border guards and soldiers on the other side.[1]" Firstly, "around the clock" is clumsy and borderline redundant. Secondly, "who faced ... on the other side" is redundant and "on the other side" is wordy. You specifically mention border guards on the East German side, yet include soldiers in your description of the troops on the Western side. Should we not have symmetry? For example, "The border was continuously manned by 50,000 East German border guards and tens of thousands of their counterparts from West Germany, Britain and the U.S."?
    I've taken out "around the clock" and "on the other side". The difference in wording between the East and West German sides is that different types of forces patrolled the border. On the east, there were the border guards. On the west, there were border guards, customs officers (who were de facto border guards) and regular soldiers from the British and US armies. The two sides were not mirror images of each other, but operated in quite different ways. -- ChrisO (talk) 22:15, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Over a million NATO and Warsaw Pact troops were stationed further back, each side constantly alert for an invasion that ultimately never came." Is "ultimately" necessary? "constantly alert" would be phrased "maintained high alert" in more military parlance. I don't like "further back" but can't come up with a decent alternative: consider rephrasing.
    I've largely rewritten this. -- ChrisO (talk) 22:15, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I believe that "the two ideological systems" would read more easily as "two ideological systems".
    Changed. -- ChrisO (talk) 22:15, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • "it was constructed in response to the economic threat posed by the large-scale emigration of its citizens to the West..." I hesitate to argue with your reference, but I would say that from the Soviet perspective the threat was far more ideological than economic. "its citizens" is a little vague, consider rephrasing to more closely link with East German citizens.
    The sources (not just the one cited) are in agreement that the main motivating factor was the economic damage caused by the loss of East Germany's citizens. By some estimates East Germany lost (if I recall correctly) as much as a quarter of its population in post-war migration to the West. Its economy was on its knees anyway (the Soviets systematically stripped the country for reparations, and there was no Marshall Aid). -- ChrisO (talk) 22:15, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • "with East Germans living in the border region suffering especially draconian restrictions." could be rephrased as "with East Germans in the border region living under especially draconian restrictions."
    Still a bit clunky, I've changed this to "East Germans living in the border region suffered especially draconian restrictions". -- ChrisO (talk) 22:15, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • "linking various national parks and nature reserves" - "various" is a bit clumsy, perhaps consider something like "linking parks and nature reserves across N national borders". (where N is the number of nations involved)
  • In "Numerous museums and memorials...", "numerous" is redundant.

General comment:

  • Beware of redundancy, as in "Very little now remains of the installations along the former inner German border." - "now" is unnecessary. There is also some overuse of "the". I would say this is the only flaw in your otherwise excellent prose. I'm certain you are tired of reading and copyediting this article, but I propose one more pass to look for these stray, irritating little words. This is the condition for my support.
  • OK, I've had a crack at whittling down the indefinite articles, and will return to this when I've got through the higher-priority items that are still outstanding on this page. -- ChrisO (talk) 22:15, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Best of luck with the FA and 20th anniversary main page, it's an excellent idea. Dhatfield (talk) 21:21, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • (ec) I don't think all the books are in that section either, e.g. Alex McDougall. I was wondering if it would make sense to list all the sources in the References section, because it currently looks as though you didn't use that many sources, but you have 249 footnotes. It would also mean you could get the citation templates out of the text (a personal bugbear of mine, which you're not obliged to share, of course). :) SlimVirgin talk|contribs 20:18, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Okay, I see that proposal now. Thanks. SlimVirgin talk|contribs 20:19, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Chris, I don't know what your view of citation templates is, and I don't want to interfere, or contribute to you being battered by suggestions, but with an article this size, I would avoid them even more than usual. I just fixed the McDougall ref to include the fancy template thing, and again in the Refs section, and it's quite time-consuming. In your shoes, I would type Smith 2009, p. 1 in the text between simple ref tags, then in the References section, no template, just Smith, John. Book title, Publisher, year. It's faster to type, it's easier to read in edit mode, and no templates will make the page load more easily (and it's already struggling my end because of the length). That's just my suggestion. Please feel free to ignore. SlimVirgin talk|contribs 20:35, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • My experience from previous FACs is that they're preferred; some people seem to demand them, others aren't so bothered, so I tend to use them by default since that avoids a lot of very time-consuming reformatting later. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:43, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • That's fine; if you're used to them, it may be faster for you. Just one point: no one can insist on citation templates at FAC, so you should choose freely.
  • I have another suggestion. I wonder whether some of the sections are a bit long. It makes it harder for people who are skimming to find information. I was thinking that adding a few extra subheads would help—descriptive ones to help people navigate their way through the article. SlimVirgin talk|contribs 20:56, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I tried to add a couple earlier, but I didn't save—I'm not familiar enough with the text, and I didn't feel confident that I'd properly split up the sections. If I do try again, feel free to revert if you don't like them. SlimVirgin talk|contribs 21:52, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose (Note that this is a fairly easy one to fix, and if you disagree, please inform me). I started doing an image review when I realized that many of the images were quite unnecessary and poorly laid out, disrupting the layout of the article. There are a few galleries and several images below each subheading that are put right next to each other. A large majority of these images could be removed, I believe, and the article would be improved. NW (Talk) 01:36, 20 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I think you're the first contributor to call for the removal of images; others have been generally welcomed the use and selection of images. I would defend the current selection as being necessary to illustrate the concepts described in the text, and their removal would make the article much more text-heavy and less informative. I'd be interested to know what other editors think. -- ChrisO (talk) 07:35, 20 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I find the images informative and evocative; I think the article would be poorer without them. How well the layout works probably depends on screen size/resolution, but it looks fine here. --JN466 09:18, 20 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I also like the use of imagery. I have suggested that an image be moved and would be happy to see a couple of galleries broken up. But IMHO the images are right for the article. ϢereSpielChequers 16:08, 20 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    In that case, I shall strike my oppose, and make some comments below regarding which images I believe ought to be removed. NW (Talk) 22:03, 20 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Actually, I agree with NW. Let me give some examples. There are many places in the article where two or three images are used, where I think one would suffice. Including so many next to each makes each image small and hard to see (few readers will click to make them bigger) and sometimes there is no need for the second and third picture.
In the "Border area today" section, the three images are hard to see, since they are so small. Spreading them out throughout the section would help this situation.
In the "Opening of the border and the fall of the GDR" section, the two photos both show cars on a road. Pictorially, they are not really that different.
In the "Deaths on the border" section, the two memorials are very similar. I'm unconvinced that both images are necessary.
In the "Escape methods" section, the images are all contained in one box when they could be spread out throughout the section and thus be bigger and easier to see.
These are just some examples of larger trends in the article: repetitious images and images that are not distributed throughout the article as well as they could be. Awadewit (talk) 01:32, 21 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I've significantly revised the images in the article. Please re-review and let me know what you think. -- ChrisO (talk) 22:12, 24 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Further comments by Tony1

[edit]
  • Agree with Slim and Sandy.
  • NW, was it worth an oppose? BTW, I hinted that the dog pic (the one next to the superb helicopter pic) could be dropped. I hope my enlargement of some of the images isn't to blame for your impression of poor placement. Do let me know if that might be the case and I'll try to do something about it. I think the blackish map with arrows, from the propaganda film, could be considered for removal. Unsure. What does it add?
    I found early on, when doing research for this article, that the Western side is massively overrepresented in the literature (or at least that portion of it available to me) while the East German side is very underrepresented. What I've tried to do with the article is to present and contrast the differing POVs of the two sides. The juxtaposition of the map and the shield is deliberate. The West Germans agitated for reunion ("the Fatherland is over there too"), while the East Germans interpreted that as aggression and revanchism. The image illustrates the East German state's justification for the border fortifications, i.e. that they were defensive. It's worth noting here, parenthetically, that the East Germans consistently portrayed the border in this light, even to the border guards, despite the obvious fact that the fortifications faced inwards and would have been completely useless against a NATO invasion. -- ChrisO (talk) 21:52, 20 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • As an aside, my feeling is that the selection of images (from an image-rich topic, when you look at the external links at the bottom), might have illustrated more graphically the appalling ugliness of the wall, the scarring of the landscape. But it's a minor point that I don't intend to be an issue here.
  • Chris, on the matter of the book Stasiland—you're right, it's not strictly academic in the sense of the standard practices of verification. But it does bring out the human side of the wall, and why so many East Germans were so desperate to risk their lives to cross it. If you want verification, a related film taken from a doco on the ABC last year gives proof enough of one of her subjects, and in the interview with two Stasi operatives, showed how at least the hard core of the militia and police really did believe the border served a morally justified end. My school friend who went to work in the GDR in 1988 to live out his socialist fantasy recently told me: "of course you needed the wall, the Stasi; to pursue their 'ideals', they were asking people to do things that went against some of the fundamentals of human nature; they had to force people for a greater good." Hmmm; I can see the logic in a very small frame, but ... However, there are many directly relevant links, so I respect your decision.
  • The WP.de article is rather short compared with this one. I've posted a note there asking for contributors' opinions of this article in the light of the coming anniversary.
    Thanks for doing that! -- ChrisO (talk) 21:52, 20 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • My I reiterate some of the comments above: you've really done a wonderful job. I think the fact that you travelled along the wall might be a great topic for a piece on the background to the preparation of the FAC, for the (featured) "Dispatches" in The Signpost. Do you like that idea? Tony (talk) 12:20, 20 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Sounds like a good idea, let me know (on my talk page) what you need. -- ChrisO (talk) 21:52, 20 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Awadewit

[edit]

Oppose on criterion 3 (I have checked the images in the first part of the article - up through "Patrol roads". I will do the rest later.)

Resolved image issues
  • The Bundesarchiv images are templated in such a way that I can't work out how to add an English description within the template, and the template instructions suggest that for licensing purposes we're only allowed to use the original German descriptions from the Bundesarchiv. Could you let this one be resolved in slower time, as I will need to track down whoever's responsible for the Bundesarchiv images? -- ChrisO (talk) 23:05, 20 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Nothing you linked me to suggests we are prohibited from adding English translations on the image description page. If the description cannot be added to the template for some formatting reason, please add the translation to another section on the image description page. Awadewit (talk) 16:57, 23 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • File:Hier ist deutschland.jpg - Please add a description of exactly what this object is to the image description page and its location (museum, for example). Also, is there an author of sorts for the object?
  • File:Grenzer nato attack.jpg - I'm not convinced that this fair use image is needed. The idea explained in the caption and the purpose of use seem clear without the image. I would suggest either strengthening the purpose of use by explaining precisely why the reader needs to see this image or removing the image.
  • Please see my response to Tony1 here, where I explained the rationale of using this image. I strongly believe that it is necessary to illustrate (and contrast) the differing viewpoints. I've expanded the fair use rationale to make this point. -- ChrisO (talk) 23:05, 20 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • File:Fuerungsstelle Behrungen.jpg - The uploader and the author are not the same person, thus it is unclear if the rights to this photo have been release. Please ask the author to indicate as such by signing on the image description page or using OTRS.
  • File:Zonen-gaby.jpg - I'm uconvinced of the need for this fair use image. The purpose of use does not explain the need for the viewer to see this image. Please either strengthen the purpose of use or remove the image from the article.
  • I've expanded the purpose of use. The image is a significant contemporary reaction to the fall of the border - for which we otherwise have no visual indication - and is widely cited in the literature. -- ChrisO (talk) 19:57, 22 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • File:Postenweg.jpg - Please add an English description to the image description page. Also, we cannot verify that the author released the rights to the photo since the uploader and the author are not the same. Please ask the author to sign such a statement on the image description page.
  • The image was uploaded here to the German Wikipedia by the author (18:43, 22. Sep. 2004 Markus Schweiß 1024 x 1536 (205.830 Bytes) (Postenweg an der Innerdeutschen Grenze, eigenenes Bild, GNU FDL)). I transwiki'd it to the Commons while preserving the licence exactly as it was, and the original image was deleted from the German Wikipedia as a duplicate of the Commons image. -- ChrisO (talk) 19:57, 22 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • All of the images that come from an archive need to have a bit more information. A person should be able to find the image at the specific archive without too much trouble. However, that would currently be difficult to do. Could a call number, for example, be added to these images?
  • The only information that I have is that they're from archives of the former East German Ministry of State Security (the Stasi). I can tell you where the pictures can be viewed - i.e. principally in museum exhibits, where entire folders of Stasi papers are on public display - but I can't give you any more detail than that. -- ChrisO (talk) 23:48, 23 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Many of these issues will be very easy to fix. Awadewit (talk) 18:52, 20 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

East German image licences

I'm going to need some advice/assistance on these images as a batch. I've commented on the images to give some background info; please advise on which tag to use. -- ChrisO (talk) 19:57, 22 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • File:Passierschein.jpg - Please fill out the description field on the image description page. Also, since this image is hosted on Commons, it needs to clearly indicate why it is PD in both the US and Germany. Please investigate and add the appropriate US tag.
Diagram from a West German propaganda leaflet. No copyright statement, no indication that it was ever copyrighted. Reproduced just about everywhere along the border at the time and in numerous museum exhibits, books and hand-outs now. -- ChrisO (talk) 19:57, 22 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • It's anonymous. Leaflets like this were fired by the million across the border in the 1950s and 1960s, with no attribution and no declaration of copyright. There's no indication that it was ever copyrighted. Various other works (e.g. Gordon, Joseph S. (1988). "East German psychological operations: a 1965 case study". in Gordon, Joseph S., Psychological operations: the Soviet challenge) reproduce similar leaflets without any indication of authorship or copyright. -- ChrisO (talk) 19:57, 22 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Cover of an East German propaganda booklet published in 1979. It's attributed to the East German Army but there's no indication of authorship or declaration of copyright. -- ChrisO (talk) 19:57, 22 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • File:Grenztruppen im Einsatz.jpg - Since this image is hosted on Commons, it needs to indicate why it is PD in the US and the original country of the photo. Please investigate and add an appropriate tag for the US.
  • Image from an East German propaganda booklet published in 1979. It's attributed to the East German Army but there's no indication of authorship or declaration of copyright. -- ChrisO (talk) 19:57, 22 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • File:Beobachtungsprotokoll.jpg - Since this image is hosted on Commons, it needs to indicate why it is PD in the US and the original country of the photo. Please investigate and add an appropriate tag for the US.
  • Image is of a document from a West German archive, displayed at an open-air museum. Attributed to the West German Border Protection force but no individual attribution and no declaration of copyright. -- ChrisO (talk) 19:57, 22 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • File:Control strip inspection.jpg - Since this image is hosted on Commons, it needs to indicate why it is PD in the US and the original country of the photo. Please investigate and add an appropriate tag for the US.
  • Image is from an East German propaganda booklet published in 1979. It's attributed to the East German Army but there's no indication of authorship or declaration of copyright. -- ChrisO (talk) 19:57, 22 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • File:Control strip footprints.jpg - Since this image is hosted on Commons, it needs to indicate why it is PD in the US and the original country of the photo. Please investigate and add an appropriate tag for the US.
  • Image is of a photograph attributed to the archive of the former East German Ministry of State Security (the Stasi) displayed at an open-air museum. Anonymous authorship and no indication of copyright. -- ChrisO (talk) 19:57, 22 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • File:Panzersperre lkw.jpg - Since this image is hosted on Commons, it needs to indicate why it is PD in the US and the original country of the photo. Please investigate and add an appropriate tag for the US.
  • Image is of a photograph attributed to the archive of the former East German Ministry of State Security displayed at an open-air museum. Anonymous authorship and no indication of copyright. -- ChrisO (talk) 19:57, 22 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Update: This issue is now moot, since none of these images are now in the revised version of the article. -- ChrisO (talk) 21:53, 24 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Ok. Awadewit (talk) 01:39, 26 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I believe that image layout could be improved - see my comments above at the conversation.
  • Bear with me on this, I'm reformatting the article following the discussion about length below and the image layout will change considerably. It should be done by the end of tomorrow (24 October). -- ChrisO (talk) 23:48, 23 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I still have some issues: 1) Why do we need two images of soldiers patrolling in the "East Germany" section? 2) Why do we need two pictures of trucks showing the "Western Allies"? 3) Why do we need two images of cars on a road in "Opening of the border and the fall of the GDR"? 4) Why do we need a picture of hikers in the "Border area today" section? Awadewit (talk) 01:48, 26 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think you've missed the purpose of the images. They're showing different things, or different aspects discussed in the text, which I've tried to bring out in the captions: 1) The first image is an East German patrol on the border line supervising maintenance work on the border fortifications; the second is a specialised border reconnaissance soldier gathering intelligence on what was happening on the other side of the border (a frequently seen and rather iconic aspect of the border system, at least from the Western perspective). They illustrate two different aspects of how the GDR controlled its border. 2) The first image shows American soldiers and West German border guards working together; the second image shows a British patrol unit (without Germans, note). They illustrate (and contrast) the differing approaches of the Western Allies. 3) The images are not "of cars" but of border crossings. The first is the scene at an existing border crossing; the second is of a new border crossing cut in the fence. (This was the real significance of the border opening, that the hitherto inviolable fortifications were cut through.) 4) The image is not merely "of hikers", it is of hikers on the former border, as the caption says. They're walking on the old patrol road. I've added "patrol road" to the caption to make this clearer. -- ChrisO (talk) 08:33, 26 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • 1) The pictures don't really make this significant difference clear, in my opinion, though. 2) What are the differing approaches? That the Americans worked with the Germans and the British did not? If this is the contrast, it should be explained in the caption. 3) If the real significant is that inviolable fortifications were cut through, this should be mentioned in the caption. 4) I get that, but the fact is that the picture just looks like hikers on a dirt road. This article has a lot of images - if you want people to look at them all and appreciate their value, I think you have to reduce the number that are included. Awadewit (talk) 18:30, 26 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Article size

[edit]

Will Supporting editors please comment on the article size; at 22,000 words and 136 KB prose size, this article is almost twice as long in word count as the currently largest FA, at 14,000 words, and would set a new standard, significantly higher than the article size recommendations. User:Dr pda/Featured article statistics. WP:SIZE recommends 6,000 to 10,000 words of readable prose, although some FAs have passed that. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:50, 21 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

SandyGeorgia, this is a good point, and I have been thinking about it since I first read it in the WPGermany assessment. It is incredibly long. Yet,according to WP:FA?, there is no proscription on length, except to require that the article stays focused on the main topic without going into unnecessary detail. Is there really any unnecessary detail in this? I didn't think so. It is incredibly thorough, to be sure, but I didn't see any extraneous information. Perhaps it should be broken up, but how and where? What are your thoughts on this? Auntieruth55 (talk) 17:45, 21 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
My goal is to make sure that, when a new precedent will be set at FAC, reviewers have taken WP:WIAFA, which includes MoS, hence size, into account, and that a thorough review of precedent-setting items is undertaken. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:50, 21 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I hate to say it, but the article is clearly too long. No, check that: it's way, waaayyy, wwwwaaaaaayyyy too long. For an article of this size, it doesn't matter that it's an impressive achievement; it's such a long web page that the sheer length hurts readers. We have to do better than this.

Here is a word count of the sections currently in the article, that I computed by cutting-and-pasting out of my browser (so it includes section headings and captions but not footnotes):

words section
476 Lead
1409 Origins
2874 Development
1620 Impact
5484 Fortifications
581 Sea border
3613 Guarding
3623 Crossing
3573 Escapes
2997 Fall
531 Today
3474 References etc.
30255 Total

By comparison, Autism, a featured article that I help maintain that is currently too long and which really should be split up at some point, is about 7400 words (13,000 words, if you count its references).

I suggest creating the following subarticles:

These should all be replaced by brief summaries in the main article. The Sea border, Today, and rest of the Impact sections could be kept. Eubulides (talk) 19:40, 21 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This looks reasonable to me, but I'm wondering what the original editor would think? And would you, SG, be willing to expedite the FA status of the process if he completes it, so that this could be, we hope, done in time for the anniversary? Auntieruth55 (talk) 19:51, 21 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm aware that ChrisO is aiming for November 9 for worthy reasons and that this is a complex review, also for valid reasons; whether we make it is up to reviewer consensus, and whether Raul chooses it is a separate matter. The fastest way forward if a major article restructuring is undertaken might be a restart. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:28, 21 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I've also got to say I like putting in 4th level headers in the review pages. It makes added comments and so forth much easier. Please please may we continue to do this? Auntieruth55 (talk) 19:53, 21 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
We should discuss that at WT:FAC, where I can outline the pros and cons (I let them stand in the case of long, complex reviews, but there can be other problems). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:46, 21 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I've previously said on the article talk page that I would be willing to split the article to meet length limits. It would however be a yet further major investment of my time. I have spent literally man-weeks on this to date and it is, frankly, a considerable strain to spend hours every day for months on end working on this article. I'm okay with putting in some extra effort to split the article - which will require considerable rewriting, since all the summaries will need to be written and the loose ends tidied up - in order to meet the 9th November deadline. However, if Sandy feels that it can't realistically be expedited to FA status before the deadline then I would prefer to spread the work out over a longer period. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:17, 21 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Chris, the fortifications section would be a good stand-alone article for FA and the November 9th main page (assuming everyone agrees). It just needs a lead and a brief section to wrap it up. Then in the main article, reduce that section to a brief summary and a link to the main fortifications article. That's all that would be needed in the short term. SlimVirgin talk|contribs 21:09, 21 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
True, and the others could be split into the breakout articles, with the main summary article pulling (linking) them all together.  ?? I'd be willing to give a few hours of time to help you with this tonight and tomorrow night (I'm 0+5). But Chris, this is up to you. Auntieruth55 (talk) 21:33, 21 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Also, in terms of expediency and the possibility of a restructuring or restart, working out Awadewit's image concerns should be a priority. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:37, 21 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
SlimVirgin, just to clarify, are you suggesting that the FA candidate should be the fortifications section, split out from this article? Wouldn't that require a fresh FAC and wouldn't that mean that this FAC would lapse? -- ChrisO (talk) 21:38, 21 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I understood that Sandy was suggesting a restart would be acceptable. So far as I know, it wouldn't necessarily involve any extra time, if that's your concern. Any of the other sections might work as a stand-alone FAC too, but the fortifications one seems most complete, and therefore the least work for you. Or perhaps you were thinking of making them all stand-alones, but then continuing to have this one as the FAC, with the others referenced in it summary-style. That would be fine too, but it would involve a lot of rewriting. SlimVirgin talk|contribs 21:47, 21 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Both seem to be viable suggestions - though personally I favour the latter, with the spinouts, as that fits more closely with my original vision for the development of the article. I'd like Sandy to clarify whether he is in fact suggesting that a FAC restart would be acceptable, as I'd hate to put in a lot of nugatory effort. -- ChrisO (talk) 21:51, 21 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
A restart on this FAC would be one possibility if this article is restructured (and addressing image concerns as soon as possible would expedite any restart), but if you decide to put forward a different sub-article at FAC, then you would probably want to withdraw this one and re-submit the other one. Either is still doable timewise. I hope I understand the question; if not, I'll be out until later tonight and will check back. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:10, 21 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
OK, thanks. I'm totally exhausted and going to bed right now, so I'll sleep on it overnight and work out in the morning what I'm going to do. -- ChrisO (talk) 22:14, 21 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Personally, I have enjoyed the article's length. Like some books, it's an article to dip into again and again; each time you do, you bring up something of value. --JN466 02:15, 22 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I like the length, but I'm concerned about it because of the practicality of people on dialup and other slow connections reading it. Having experienced some third world internet connections in my time I think that subdivision would be worthwhile. I'd be tempted to spin out the section on the partition of Germany and have a "Main" link, also you could make more use of abbreviations, like GDR instead of East Germany. Currently FRG is mentioned twice, but both as an abbreviation of Federal Republic of Germany; Either both of those could be taken out or a large number of West Gemany's be replaced with FRG. ϢereSpielChequers 07:56, 22 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I think it's too long, but not twice as long as it should be. It would be a much more effective to mark the anniversary, and more likely to attract coverage for en.WP, if the whole article, trimmed, were promoted and—if Raul agreed—featured on the Main Page. Yes, "Development", "Fortification", "Guarding" and "Crossing" could each have daughter aricles and come down by almost half to about 2000 words each, saving more than 7000 words from the 23,000. I would be willing to work on a summary of one or two of these sections, if Chris thought it was a good idea. Couldn't the FAC remain under such circumstances? Tony (talk) 08:23, 22 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
With a view to saving text, I looked at the top: I couldn't find any savings in the lead, but I've just slashed and burned the first section, "Origins of the border", from 1321 down to 1021 words. Is it more focused now, and did I remove information that is germane to an understanding of the topic? Chris and others: what do you think? (I've self-reverted.) Bear in mind that there's also an article on the GDR; while much in need of renovation (I've just tagged it with refimprove and copy-edit notices), there's a bit of overlap in scope between that article and this one, and the information and refs I've removed from this one could easily be relocated there at some stage ....? If we are to seriously get this article down to size, some of the other sections could be more savagely dealt with. Looking for feedback on this, please. I'm certainly not going it alone. Tony (talk) 09:04, 22 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
PS I like Eubulides's idea above. Tony (talk) 09:07, 22 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Having thought about this overnight, I favour Eubulides's proposed approach - retain this article as the FAC candidate and use it as a hub for a series of satellite articles spun off from the current sections (which should themselves be of FA quality after this review!). The division proposed by Eubulides looks good to me. I'll set up the satellite articles myself but I would appreciate help in summarising the sections in this article. Tony, I like your changes in the "development" section - more please! I'll come back to Awadewit's comments this evening. -- ChrisO (talk) 09:56, 22 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
OK, proceeding with my first-ever self-re-revert. I'll run through the sections that will be the basis of the "Development" daughter article, as suggested by Eubulides, if someone else will volunteer to do another bit (?). Chis, I'm presuming you'll take the current full version and shove it into the new daughter article for later work. The only negative is that there will probably be quite a bit of duplicated text until the daughter articles are expanded. I don't think that matters, does it? I'll rely on your scrutiny for text removals that you think go too far. Sandy, are we aiming to cut the whole article by ... a third? half? Tony (talk) 10:54, 22 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not aiming for anything in particular ... that's up to reviewers :) I just had to make sure that size was examined, since it hadn't come up in review, and this article was a significant departure from precedent. (ChrisO, each daughter article would have to be separately presented at FAC, and you could aim for a featured topic.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:44, 22 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I had been avoiding the size issue. Elephant in the living room. Pink elephant in the living room, probably. What elephant? So I'm glad you brought it up, Sandy. Auntieruth55 (talk) 19:58, 22 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not aiming at this time to present the daughter articles at FAC. The parent article is the FAC target. I like the idea of a featured topic, but I think that's a bit too ambitious for the time being. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:02, 22 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"Development of the border" reduced from 2715 to 2001 words. I count the words in display mode. I'm hoping a higher percentage can be slashed from subsequent sections. Tony (talk) 12:24, 22 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent work, Tony - thank you very much. I've created the first spinoff article, Development of the inner German border, and further reduced the equivalent section in this article by combining the "origins" and "development" sections and making them much more concise. The word count for these sections combined is now 1469 words, including the captions, or 1338 without them (I don't know if we're meant to count them), down from 4,823 previously. I've combined the key images into a three-image gallery showing the three phases of the border's development. I'd appreciate some feedback on what people think of this approach and whether it is along the right lines, or whether some even more drastic pruning needs to be done. Some help will be needed in fixing/rescuing references. -- ChrisO (talk) 23:15, 22 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm rather regretful. Some articles just need to be long because they comprehensively cover the topic. Subarticles rarely get many views.--Wehwalt (talk) 01:53, 23 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia:Article_size#Readability_issues has notes on how to count text (only the main body of text should be counted). By the way, the article currently stands at 188 kB; I was surprised to find that Wikipedia:Article_size#Very_long_articles says that "articles over 400 KB may not render properly at all". The article is well below that, and on my system loads no slower than any other.
I am really a little torn here. Summary style is a reasonable, and standard, suggestion for an article of this size, and it's great that editors have rolled up their sleeves and started this process. But as we do this work, let's not forget that summary style also has its drawbacks:
  • The information ends up being more disjointed and watered down.
  • Subarticles with non-compelling titles attract few readers.
  • A set of articles with partially duplicated information is more difficult to maintain.
Some sections lend themselves to being spun out more than others. A subarticle on the fortifications and border escapes, for example, will probably find its readership anyway; these are compelling topics that people will seek out.
FWIW, the German FA on Plato ([5]) currently stands at 178 kB, compared to 188 kB for this article. I am not even sure Plato is the biggest FA over there. I am happy for this article to set a new precedent in the English WP. It is a compelling topic that lends itself to encyclopedic coverage, and the less of the "encyclopedic" feel we lose while addressing concerns about size, the better.
P.S. I like the third image illustrating border development. --JN466 12:10, 23 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Size update: This morning, the article's main body of prose stands at 20,145 words (counted in MS Word, after deletion of tables and image captions). --JN466 12:18, 23 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
This morning my time, the current article size is 18,835 words; please see User:Dr pda/prosesize.js, a script that can be added to your monobook to calculate prose size. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:35, 23 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I see, thanks. We're now at 16,626 words of prose, according to that tool. --JN466 01:36, 24 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I don't dispute that this is a compelling topic and it is with regret that I raised the size concerns, but if this goes on the mainpage it will be seen by users around the world, and therefore we should be concerned about users with slow dialup connections. The German Wikipedia may well be in a position where it can assume that almost all surfers in Germany, Austria and Switzerland have connections that can handle articles of this size. But our remit is global, I'd be interested in anyone who has stats as to how many surfers have connections that timeout on articles of this size, but if the choice is between hiving off sections into separate articles and excluding some third world viewers, my !vote is for hiving off more sections. ϢereSpielChequers 12:47, 23 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Not whole sections, please. I agree with much of what Jayen says. A featured topic, as suggested above by Sandy, is one way of overcoming a few of these issues; but that is for after the anniversary. Chris, in the recent reductions in text, is there anything you feel sorry about losing from this main article? Tony (talk) 13:34, 23 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not too unhappy about it. I've focused on keeping the essential points intact while moving the expanded text (with illustrative examples) into the spinoff articles. So far it seems to be working pretty well. We're now down to 16,623 words (as calculated using User:Dr pda/prosesize.js). This constitutes a reduction of 25% from the article's peak size. I've slimmed down the fortifications section from 5,484 words to 1,372, a reduction of about 75%. The original content is now in Fortifications of the inner German border. I've also reduced the number of images in that section, which hopefully will address some of the layout concerns that Awedewit raised earlier. I'll do the remainder of the article tomorrow. At the current rate of progress, I reckon we should be able to get the main article under 10,000 words pretty easily. Some references will need to be fixed, though. -- ChrisO (talk) 23:42, 23 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
As for statistics, the 2009-09-24 Economist special section on telecoms in emerging markets says that about 30% of Internet users worldwide are on fixed-line broadband and about 15% are on mobile broadband. The rest (i.e., the majority) are on slow connections. There is a particular problem in Africa, not only because of the infrastructure within the continent, but because of lack of connectivity to the rest of the world (this is being worked on, but it's still a problem). Eubulides (talk) 01:53, 24 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
And most of the world's population has no access at all to the Internet. Tony (talk) 07:05, 24 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Images are easily as much of a problem as text length for those with slow connections, but as others have noted to strip images from this article would be a significant loss. It is a reality that those without reasonable connection speeds are better served by the Wikipedia release CDs. Also, not all connections from Africa are slow: my connection from South Africa was perfectly adequate for browsing WP and the situation is improving rapidly. Article readability should be the primary determinant of size. Dhatfield (talk) 18:18, 24 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Reviewed: Support. Thanks for bringing this up, Sandy. I am a proponent of summary style and must disagree with JN466 - well written summaries can make for powerful, attractive reading and I believe that interested readers will take the effort to dig into subtopics. The hard work and dedication shown here to address this issue show off the finest spirit of collaboration in our community. I regret I may not revisit this FAC before it closes but improvements to an already excellent article will not change my vote. Dhatfield (talk) 18:46, 24 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You are correct about the effect of images on load time, but one of the arguments put forward at WP:SIZE has to do with reader attention span, also. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:48, 24 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Seeing the result (kudos!!) I am not unhappy; it was just a bit of a wrench to begin with. (And needless to say, I still support). --JN466 22:06, 24 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Article size update

[edit]

I've more or less hit the target I was aiming for: the article is now 10,636 words long, a reduction of over 50% from its peak length and significantly less than some of the English Wikipedia's largest FAs. The expanded content has been decanted into a series of spinout articles, Border guards of the inner German border, Crossing the inner German border, Escape attempts and victims of the inner German border, Development of the inner German border, Fall of the inner German border and Fortifications of the inner German border. This has also, happily, resolved many of the remaining reference and image issues that have been raised above. The spinout articles are a bit rough at the moment (in particular, references need fixing) but I will work on this in slower time between now and November 9th. I'll also put together an article on the British Frontier Service to fix a notable red link in this article.

Issues remaining:

If there are any more outstanding issues, please add them to this list! -- ChrisO (talk) 22:15, 24 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Since the article has been significantly restructured, you might want to ping previous supporters to see if they're still on board. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:18, 24 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Sandy, I'm still on board with Support. Even more so now. I've brought up a couple of issues with Chris, but I don't see them getting in the way of FA for this article, once the references/bibliography/footnotes thing is cleared up, and I think that is underway tonight. Auntieruth55 (talk) 00:04, 25 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Good idea, I'll do that now. -- ChrisO (talk) 22:18, 24 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If you're done removing material from the article, I can do some work on the refs now. Ok? --JN466 22:22, 24 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, absolutely. Go for it! ;-) -- ChrisO (talk) 22:23, 24 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for trimming that article down; it must have been a lot of work. I found two images needing alt text, noted in my section above. Eubulides (talk) 06:29, 25 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Fixed. -- ChrisO (talk) 09:36, 25 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - I trust that the changes everyone is working on will pan out fine. My only complaint is the images; in those side-by-side tables, they should really be smaller than 240px, and stand-alone images that are 426px are way too big. I love images, but they can't overwhelm the text in the article. —Ed (talk • contribs) 05:55, 25 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
How wide is your window? They look fine to me. If they're too small, you have to divert to the full-res image, which brings its own problems. Tony (talk) 06:00, 25 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
My screen is 1280 x 800. Images like the first one in the "West Germany" section take up virtually half the width of the space devoted to text, while when the tables are on the left, like in the "Opening of the border and the fall of the GDR" section, it shoves the text way over to the right, which I greatly dislike. Basically, I think that many of the stand-alone images are blown up too big; take the one in the "Economic and social impact" for example. It's at 270px...for what? The text on the building is virtually unreadable anyway, so I highly doubt that 180 or 220px would hurt the appearance of the image. —Ed (talk • contribs) 06:21, 25 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that the images are too large. In particular the superwide multiple image at the start of Border area today must be redone: on my screen it caused the text to look like this:
 Very little
 remains of
 the
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
 installations along the former innner German border....
I suggest replacing side-by-side image pairs with top-and-bottom image pairs, as they're less likely to cause these formatting glitches (this suggestion is independent of image size). I also suggest omitting the size specification from most of the thumbnails, as the default will grow to 220px soon anyway. Some images definitely need to be larger than the default (the maps and diagrams, in particular, are fine as they are), but most of them don't. The 400+px images should be shrunk to 300px; none of them need to be that large. I suggest using default sizes for File:BGS-Hubschrauber Alouette II.jpg, File:Bardowiek transformatorenhaus.jpg (its wording can't be read anyway), File:Control strip hoetensleben.jpg, File:Sm-70 schlagsdorf.jpg, File:East german propaganda mortar.jpg, File:Border crossing, Oebisfelde DDR. Apr 1990.jpg; mark File:Zonen-gaby.jpg with upright. Please shrink the ~240px photos down to ~220px. As a general rule of thumb, explicit thumb sizes less than 300px are problematic because some users set their default size to 300px; so just leave the sizes alone or use something like upright=1.1 to make them a bit bigger. Eubulides (talk) 06:29, 25 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Image sizes and arrangement

[edit]

Eubulides, I like the idea of verticalising some or all of the multiple arrays of images. The horizontal arrangements are causing ugly text-crowd to the side on my monitor (East Germany, West Germany, Crossing points, Escape methods, and Opening of the border—all squeeze horribly, yet would be fine as vertical arrangements). BTW, correct me if I'm wrong, but it's the window width you establish for your browser, not the size of your monitor or its pixel res, that is at issue in the text squeezing problem, yes? If I widen a WP window, the next time I open WP, it stretches to that width; the browser seems to have a memory. This has a dramatic effect on the effectiveness of image arrangement.

As a tangential issue, when horizontal placement is chosen (I'm not sure it should ever be encouraged, are you?), surely there's a way of preventing the text from breaking up as you illustrated above. The site can't be that primitive ...?

While a few images could be smaller—the boot and the space-suit <grin>—why are some of the images tiny? I see that a few I enlarged have been made microscopic again, without regard to their detail and the relevance to the text and the other images. For example:

Phases of development of the inner German border
  • Two people standing either side of a lowered border pole on a dirt road with a sign in the foreground
    The border before fortification: inter-zonal barrier near Asbach in Thuringia, 1950
  • A hillside with multiple barbed-wire fences running parallel to each other, with fruit trees, a barn and a watchtower in the background.
    The newly strengthened border in 1962, with barbed-wire fences, watchtowers and minefields.

Ther first two require the application of a magnifying glass to the screen. In the first, surely the point of it is the sign, the gate, and the two figures. But it's impossible to make out these elements (except perhaps for the gate). The second pic looks like the backyard when my parents kept goats and horses. Isn't the point to compare these details with those of the "third-generation" border in the third pic? Impossible. These should be enlarged and vertically arranged.

I find the set of five images of the watchtowers and bunkers highly relevant; but it seems very hard to arrange them neatly in the course of the article. Suggestion: why not retain one of them, larger, as a normal, right-nested pic in the section, and place the rest in a gallery at the bottom of the article, with a footnote-link to it? The same for the border fences and wall, uncomfortably jostling against the SM-70 pic below them. The large swathes of white space are distracting to the readers.

The first map: thanks for tweaking, Eub. I wonder what the blue lines are, and whether they're relevant. Their meaning is not even explained in the Commons description page. Can the last bit of the caption be removed, since the inner provincial boundaries don't seem to be at issue, do they? It's a rather long caption.

The diagram summarising numbers of escape attempts is too small to be useful unless you hit full-res. Is that OK? I note that it uses "DDR", even though that is the German abbreviation and the article uses "GDR" consistently (no big deal, though). Tony (talk) 07:28, 25 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I like what is happening with this article. I suggest making the development of the border even clearer by changing the captions of the three images, carrying through the theme of 1st generation, 2nd generation and 3rd generation. Auntieruth55 (talk) 23:27, 25 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, the first image is effectively the zeroth generation, as it pre-dates the fortification of the border. We don't yet have a first-generation image; I'm trying to get hold of one to complete the sequence. -- ChrisO (talk) 23:43, 25 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Closing note: This candidate has been promoted, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FAC/ar, and leave the {{FAC}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Karanacs (talk • contribs) 17:54, October 28, 2009
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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