Wikipedia:Peer review/Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp/archive1

Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp

Long, long time ago I de-stubbed an article on the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp complex. It's been on my to-do list for over two years now yet I always had "more important things" to do. Recently me and my mother have gathered a collection of 90%+ of all the books on the camp ever published in the Polish language and I decided to make some use of them. Google Books was another useful tool.

I've spent the best part of last four days to expand the article as much as I could. I believe that the current version of the article touches most notable subjects. However, as I did pretty much of the work myself, there is a huge chance that there are things that I omitted or left unexplained, be it by accident or because they seemed obvious to me. Finally, I'm not a native speaker and, despite all the help from Mozzerati and Piotrus, there might still be a lot of simple mistakes there. Because of that I kindly request for a peer review in order to make that article better - and perhaps list it for FAC one day. //Halibutt 23:33, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

It looks very comprehensive and thorough. A very ghastly piece of history, and something that is important to document. I had a few comments on the content:

• It might be helpful to have a map of some type showing where the 50+ camps were located.
• There are a few paragraphs that are inordinately long, which I would like to see broken up for ease of reading.
• The text could use a bit of editing polish. For example, "it were the Soviet prisoners of war" => "it was the Soviet prisoners of war"; "the camps started to receive also a large number" => "the camps also started to receive a large number", &c.
• There are a lot of red links in the text that should either be unlinked or directed to a legitimate article. The access dates in the notes and references don't need to be linked.
• In a number of places the text uses a dash rather than the HTML — tag. Please use the m-dash where appropriate.
• You include a list of extermination methods. Were these the predominant methods, or are they just a random sample?
• Finally there is a "citation needed" tag in the text that could use an inline citation.

Thank you for your work on this! — RJH 15:03, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

1. Working on a map right now, should be ready tomorrow. Done (see below)
2. Could you do it?
3. I never claimed to be a native speaker... :) Fortunately Mozzerati is and he's doing all the corrections for me. edit: The two you mentioned are now corrected. Thanks!
4. I will work on the red links soon. As to the access dates - they need not to be linked, but it's the citation templates that do link them. There's little I can do about it.
5. And why should we use the HTML when there's no need to?
   • Whatever works. :) — RJH 15:18, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
6. I chose the most predominant ones. I have the list mentioned right below it and I could list all the methods listed by the survivor, but I simply saw no need to. Should I expand on it?
   • Could you then relate the fact that these were the most predominant methods, rather than a random sample? — RJH 15:18, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
7. Working on it. Unfortunately, parts of the article were written by an anon user who added a piece or two on female guards to almost all Holocaust-related articles (all in one spree!) and then withdrew from Wikipedia. I'm not sure how to source the claims he added. There is also one "citation needed" tag I added myself near the end of the article, when mentioning the number of survivors. My problem with that number is that none of the books I have seems to mention an exact number of prisoners who survived the camp or the number of inmates the camps had at the moment of their liberation. I'm still looking though.

Thanks for your help! //Halibutt 15:30, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Copied from my talk page (//Halibutt) I just thought to review the article:

1. The lead is too short. It should be at least twice the length.
2. Please add a location map, and a scheme of the camps (I know you are a map maker)
3. The article desperately needs some sort of table or scheme or timeline or something of the sub-camps. It is darn confusing to navigate through them: the intro says 50, later in the article I find number 101, and then another article, list of sub-camps, lists about 70.
4. Points need to separate. For example, don’t talk about arrival of new prisoners when talking about industrial production. Also there are many side-stories (eg about Edda Scheer) which distract from the main points.
5. “every conceivable horror was perpetrated on the inmates” is a pure 100% POV.

Good luck. Hope it’s useful. Renata 02:54, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

1. I'll try to elaborate a bit. Any idea as to what's missing in the lead?
2. Done: Image:Austria_Mauthausen_sub-camps.png. Still in beta phase, but better than nothing.
3. The intro says "more than 50", as there were more than 50 at most times. Further down the number is 101 as this was the overall number of camps. The sub-camp article links 90 sub-camps, as I wasn't able to locate the remaining 11. It also says so in the header (The list is by no means complete as various sub-camps existed at various periods. In addition, the slave labour of the inmates was also used by a variety of companies and farms that accommodated a small number of inmates on their own.). However, I tried to clarify the matter a tad. Is it better now?
4. I am still puzzled by the problem of "women and children" thingie. Basically, that part was added by anonymous users who added it to the article and then left WP. Could you try to reword that part or move some parts around for better clarity?
5. It is, but at the same time it's an exact quote from one of the sources (and not the least radical; basically all sources use even stronger statements). Any idea as to how could we reword that? I'm afraid any way we'd turn the cat, the tail would always stick out. //Halibutt 17:28, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't know if you will ever want me to see again, but here it is... Almost 30 kb of comments... Who's now a "proficient nitpicker"? :P Renata 23:07, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, I've adopted your list as my to-do list for the article's improvement process and replied there. I think fixing all the issues you raised would leave this article as close to FAC as it gets :) //Halibutt 10:14, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

For all those who would reach this page through the FAC process, please note that the list mentioned by Renata is here. I'm making it more visible, as I believe it sets a new standard for the Peer Review :) //Halibutt 23:54, 25 May 2006 (UTC)