Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Second Battle of Kharkov

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The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

No consensus to promote at this time - Indy beetle (talk) via MilHistBot (talk) 08:20, 18 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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Second Battle of Kharkov[edit]

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Nominator(s): Buidhe (talk)

Second Battle of Kharkov (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

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I am nominating this article for A-Class review because for months it has been tagged with a banner indicating excessive reliance on primary sources, in this case memoirs by participants. The previous review back in 2006 is pretty skimpy by today's standards. It is listed as GA too so may need GAR as well. (t · c) buidhe 04:38, 14 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  • Delist - There are a number of spots in here that are primary sources that really shouldn't be for a-class. Hog Farm Talk 13:28, 29 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Don't see any over-reliance on primary sources. Two of the sources are memoirs, but these are acceptable within the strictures of WP:PRIMARY. No indication that the use is excessive. Removed the tag. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 06:26, 31 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Apologies for removing the tag now that there actually is a discussion. Primary sources are perfectly acceptable. I wouldn't normally consider memoirs to be primary, as they were written years after the events concerned. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:21, 5 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • I don't think memoirs are impermissible. They can be quite useful, but they must also be checked against academic or nonbiased sources. The German generals' memoirs I think have been shown to have glossed over some pretty terrible and reputationally inconvenient things, and it's quite possible the Soviets did so as well. What memoirs are best for is telling us how that person felt or thought about something, though that's not always gospel. -Indy beetle (talk) 01:08, 10 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • I think the issue here is that memoirs are cited extensively, on their own, and for a lot more info than what individuals were thinking about events. Is it unreasonable to expect an independent source for "By 14 May the Red Army had made impressive gains, but several Soviet divisions were so depleted that they were withdrawn and Soviet tank reserves were needed to defeat the German counter-attacks; German losses were estimated to be minimal, with only 35–70 tanks believed to have been knocked out in the 3rd and 23rd Panzer divisions." Wouldn't a historian want to check German loss records? (t · c) buidhe 02:49, 10 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      • I would tend to agree that casualty claims best come from outside sources, and where this is not possible should be attributed in-text. -Indy beetle (talk) 09:01, 10 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • There is no blanket ban on participant histories, in fact such a ban would be contrary to the purposes of Wikipedia. They are very useful for a range of material, including the opinions of the participants about what happened. They are ok for unit movements etc, but reliable secondary sources should be used for anything controversial or likely to be challenged, like casualty figures, the success (or otherwise) of particular attacks, and overall assessments of a campaign or battle in Wiki voice. The inline tags in the ref section are inappropriate, they should only be used inline in the body of the article where the material they support is controversial or likely to be challenged. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 07:26, 6 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Delist. Having said that, the article should be primarily based on Glantz, Hayward, the German multi-volume series, and similar academic sources, there are too many citations to memoirs being used for material that should be cited to secondary sources. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 11:08, 13 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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