Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Military Assistance Command, Vietnam Studies and Observations Group/archive1

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Military Assistance Command, Vietnam Studies and Observations Group[edit]

Completed nomination for RM Gillespie so no opinion from me on the quality. Carom 21:09, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Objections
First of all, I want to say this is a well-referenced and researched article, into which a lot of effort has been invested by someone who obviously has taken a keen interest in the subject matter. Kudos are in order. There is a great deal of information here, and the material is covered in depth.
However, I think there are some organizational and stylistic issues which should be addressed before the article is promoted to A-class.
1. Article Name: The article name is overly "Military Speak". I would recommend that the article be moved to Military Assistance Command Vietnam, Studies and Observations Group with MACV-SOG being a redirect page to it.
2. The Lead: This section is extremely short at one sentence. Ideally the lead should be a short summary of the entire article. A casual reader who only reads the intro should come away with a general idea of the entire article. I would refer you to the general Wikipedia guidelines and Military History Wikiproject guidelines for what should be contained in the lead.
3. Organization: Ideally, the table of contents should read as a hierarchy of sections and subsections. For example:
Unit Description
Unit Foundation & Mandate
Unit History
Event #1
Event #2
Event #3
etc.
Recognition
Notes
etc., etc.
This makes it easy for people to get a general "feel" for the article at a glance, and allows people coming back to use the article for reference to find a particular section quickly.
Again I would point you towards the Military History Wikiproject unit article guidelines for cues on how the article might be better organized.
4. Images: The article has none even though the infobox contains one. Regional maps of operations, images of the unit logos, snapshots of the terrain, vehicles, etc. would be helpful. Not only do they provide visual interest and break up the text, labeled detailed maps can clarify sections immensely. Especially helpful would be Table of Organization chart showing how the unit fit into the overall structure of the military units and commands operating in the theater. You describe this in the history section, but an organizational chart would be much clearer.
5. Wall of Acronyms: "MACVs and PAVNs and SOGs, oh my!". For the casual reader who is not well versed in modern military history, or the Vietnam conflict, the prose is very dense. It conveys a lot of information, but it does so in a very jargon-esque way. Remember that your typical audience member is probably intelligent and interested, but not well-versed in the field you are writing in. I understand that military acronyms are a fact of life in modern military organizations, but I repeatedly found myself flipping back and forth in the article trying to relocate the definitions of some of them.
6. Neutrality & Language: The text needs to be neutral, as accessible as possible by culture and background, and not allow the opinions and views of the author/editor to show. Statements like "How Washington could not comprehend the difference between the overt and the covert, after dealing for eight years with an enemy who was notorious for doing so, is beyond belief", seems to project the author's opinion and "tougher nut to crack" may be overly colloquial and informal.
All in all, this is an article that has a great deal of promise. It needs a lot of polishing and hammering, and work to bring it up to A-class level, but I think that the authors' efforts to date should be applauded.
In the future, it may be better to run the article though the project peer review process, and even the general Wikipedia peer review before submitting the article before submitting it to A-Class status review.
A good start, and I look forward to seeing this article evolve. - Vedexent 22:20, 22 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
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