Wikipedia:Peer review/Hochtief AG/archive1

Hochtief AG

This is the first time I've written anything more than a stubby article, basically because (1) I found a really annoying red link and (2) I wanted to try my hand at the new <ref> thing. But it turned out the subject was so interesting (did you know that the company that rescued the cave temples of Abu Simbel by painstakingly moving them out of the way of the River Nile, as it started to swell from the Aswan Dam, also built Hitler's Berlin bunker where he killed himself, and later constructed Germany's first nuclear power plant?) that I dragged on a bit and have now got an article that's so big it might be worth doing something serious with. It's not brilliant prose, I'm afraid, but there are lots of pictures if you like that sort of thing. There's a few red links too, most of which are for articles that exist in de: but not in en: so I might have to do a couple of translation jobs. Anyway, for an article less than 24 hours old I really don't think it's too bad! I'd really appreciate suggestions for what to do with it next, but unfortunately, German company articles don't usually get a lot of attention on English Wikipedia so I thought I'd try Peer Review. Feedback from anyone out here would really be appreciated! --TheGrappler 22:52, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

• You won't find applause from me for the ref thing usage, as I prefer the Harvard referencing style and the ref hooks don't support that yet :-) However, it is really an interesting read, well-referenced, and significantly longer than the de.w.o counterpart version where I expected to find more than you've researched. And the 24 hours figure is pretty impressive, too! As for the prose, the only thing that made me cringe a little was the overuse of the word "ultimately". I am no specialist on German companies though, and have no idea as to how they're typically represented on the Wikipedia. See what other notable companies have good articles written about them, and try to see if there is any common style pieces in them that you could pick. From what you've written in your last sentence above, it could be you've done that already, in that case, consider it from the other side --- is there anything about the German company articles that you find commonly missing? try adding it to your article then (again, sorry for being not specific here --- as I said, I'm no expert in the area). --BACbKA 00:27, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Appreciated!:) I only used "ultimately" once so bit surprised that came up as an issue... although "ultimately committed suicide" is a little excessive, you could hardly do it penultimately! As for referencing, I think the hooks are useful on an online document (where clicking there and back is easy) especially if you have a very fragmented website source (as happened here, loads of different URLs). Having said that, on a printed document, the hooks thing would drive me round the bend! I still get the feeling that there's something missing from this article - a lot of the big U.S. companies go into some depth about their management boards and so on, but there probably isn't enough information (at least, readily available in English!) for me to do that here. Company articles are of extremely varying quality and format which made it hard for me to know how to pitch it. The interesting thing about the de. article is the strength in depth it has - lots of blue links where this had red links (rather oddly, for instance, we don't have so much as a stub for two of the German World Heritage Sites listed here, whereas .zh wikipedia does) as well as little bits of biography and less well-known German buildings. I was very lucky that the de. users had kindly provided a lot of Commons media that I was able to use. The reference/note-making thing was quite straightforward for me in this case - I hadn't even heard of this company until I saw it as a red link, didn't realise how important it was until I did a bit of research. Since I did all my research on the net, I could put a citation for every tidbit of information I found. I suspect that one of the reasons so many would-be FAs lack adequate citation is precisely because they are written by experts! Anyway, the feedback is helpful. I'll have a look around... --TheGrappler 00:56, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Any further feedback would be appreciated :-) TheGrappler 04:13, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

The article reads nice, I just feel it is a little overlinked. The lead section should probably be a bit shorter, more introductory and maybe only have three or four links and not so much detail, that should come after the TOC. May I use the opportunity to point you to the German noticeboard? You might get some help there as well. I have also included your article on the Portal:Germany list of new articles, and as a DYK. Kusma (討論) 20:16, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks a lot, I've cut down on the links and pruned the lead section a little. Does this help? I don't think the lead now looks too different from some of the FAs. I think it could still do with more work, possibly on the financial side of things, where I am having trouble finding information. Partly because I'm not quite sure what information I should be looking for! Hopefully somebody on Peer Review will have an idea what's missing. TheGrappler 03:22, 18 February 2006 (UTC)