Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Peer review/Lee-Enfield/Archive 1

Lee-Enfield

The Lee-Enfield is arguably one of the most important rifles in military history, and I'd like to get the article up to Featured Article status- hence the request for a Peer Review! --Commander Zulu 04:02, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

I've implemented a huge number of changes (ie, almost everything that was suggested), rewritten quite a bit, and added some new infoboxes and references... Would it be possible to get some feedback on the new article? --Commander Zulu 08:41, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Kirill Lokshin

Well, off we go then:

• The lead should be expanded to three paragraphs or so, giving a more complete summary of the article.
• Two stacked infoboxes is rather clunky. I would move the second one down to the section that discusses it. The infoboxes should also be replaced with {{Infobox Weapon}}.
• Footnotes. Lots of footnotes, particularly for the numerical data.
• There's a lot of choppy prose. Particularly obvious are the one-line paragraphs that tend to crop up every so often; all of these need to be expanded or merged into the surrounding text.
• The bulleted list in "Manufacturers" could probably be merged with the "Production" section above, to avoid the appearance of a section that's entirely in list form.
• The "Lee-Enfields in the media" section is a trivia magnet, and should be pared down to include only significant appearances. Use in war-related computer and video games, in particular, need not be discussed at length, as this tends to be fairly obvious.
• The mass of external links at the bottom should be trimmed to only include things which provide substantial resources beyond the contents of the article.
• The "See also" section should be entirely eliminated. It's (rightly, in my opinion) frowned on during a FAC; if something's not worth mentioning in the text, it's likely not worth mentioning at all.

This definitely has a lot of good material already present; now, all the technical details and cleanup work need to be taken care of. Kirill Lokshin 04:24, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Okay, some feedback after the changes:

• Overall, this is much improved, but...
• Still no footnotes.
• Headings should be in sentence case, per the MOS.

Once these are fixed—particularly the first issue—the article might actually survive a FAC run. Kirill Lokshin 11:47, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps you could give me some examples of things that need to be cited? Most of the stuff in the article is either common knowledge (the ballistic data for .303 can be found anywhere on the net, for example), true but not put in print anywhere readily accessible (the Lee-Enfield being the oldest service rifle still in use, for example- Designed 1889, still in use with the Indian Military & Police in 2006, as seen on TV and in the print media in India), or contained in Ian Skennerton's definitive work The Lee-Enfield Story (widely regarded by all and sundry in the Military Rifle Collecting Community as The Bible Of The Lee-Enfield)

It's the standard reference text on the subject, invoked whenever information on the Lee-Enfield is needed. Even if I did find an online source or book/magazine article to cite from, chances are the magazine article/book/website would have got it's information from The Lee-Enfield Story in the first place... which kind of creates a circular citation thing. Still, if you can point out things that specifically need citing, I'd be happy to see what I can dig up. --Commander Zulu 12:24, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

It's not necessarily so much that any particular point needs to be cited so much as that inline citations of some form—even if they're primarily page numbers in Skennerton—are needed throughtout the article for it to stand any chance of being promoted to FA. (See, for example, Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands to get an impression of the exhaustiveness of footnoting expected in current FA candidates.) Kirill Lokshin 12:29, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Ok, thanks for that... looks like I'll be very busy over the next few days! --Commander Zulu 13:35, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Miborovsky

1. Clear out the numerous red links; this is what FAC reviewers wanted for a recent FAC of mine.

1. Lead paragraph should be longer.
2. "Magazine Cut-Off on an SMLE Mk III rifle- this feature was deleted on the Mk III* rifle." Here I doubt "deleted" is the grammatically correct word, maybe "removed" instead? AFAIK "delete" is for words, documents and such.
3. The 3 UK weapons infoboxes at the end is quite jarring and distracting and stacked on each other they don't look good.

-- Миборовский 02:46, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

I've started a major clean-up of the article based on the excellent suggestions so far, notably the breaking up of the weapons infoboxes and placing them in the relevant sub-sections, trimming most of the external links, eliminating the "See Also" section, deleted the "UK Modern Weapons" template, and did a major re-write of the "Lee-Enfields in the Media" section". "Deleted" is the official term used by the British Military in the List Of Changes, and in all the printed reference works on British Military arms, hence its usage in the article, although I realise it doesn't necessarily look "right" to the casual reader. I'll be implementing more changes to the article, so keep the suggestions coming! --Commander Zulu 03:23, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

OK, thanks for the "delete" explanation. -- Миборовский 00:14, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Harlsbottom

1. Assuming you own a copy of The Lee-Enfield Story, citing the article through Skennerton's work shouldn't be too hard, only long and tedious. If I wasn't away on business I'd pull out my copy and give you a hand. He's also written/published many individual pamphlets on the individual Enfield Rifles which are sold at many gun shows nowadays.
2. I know I'm in a minority but I'd like to see the rifles listed according to the 1926 nomenclature guidelines. To the casual reader interested in Lee-Enfield rifles, such a layout would facilitate absorbtion of the facts as well as being correct.
3. Seeing as the P14/Rifle No.3 has been included, perhaps you'd include a short paragraph on the Enfield Model 2 rifle, which was adopted as the Rifle No. 9 in 1951? See EM-2 and User:Harlsbottom/EM2

Aside from my the nomenclature of the weapons in the headings and the drastic need to cite Skennerton, I see nothing seriously wrong with this article. --Harlsbottom 21:47, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback, Harlsbottom! I do indeed have a copy of The Lee-Enfield Story, as well as the Small Arms Identification Series of booklets written by Skennerton, and some of his other works as well. I have to confess, though, my problem is that after my experiences with the Webley Revolver article, I find myself looking at the huge number of cites I'd need to add and realising the footnotes would probably end up as long as the article... Still, I'll make a start on it shortly.

If you look carefully at the nomenclature (and the talk page), you'll see there really is method to the madness... the titles use the nomenclature of the rifles at the time it was adopted for a couple of reasons- one of them is that I think the "Rifle, No x Mk x" system isn't nearly as descriptive as the "Rifle, Short, Magazine Lee-Enfield, Mk x" system, and partly because I see No 4 rifles called "SMLE No 4" rifles on the net all the time and it really irritates me, since the No 4 is not and SMLE, just as an M38 Swedish Mauser is not a Kar98k. The Rifle No. 9 is a .22 trainer, AFAIK, and is mentioned in the ".22 Training Rifles" section- and the EM-2 is not a Lee-Enfield, and is thus outside the scope of the article, at least IMO. On that basis it may also be prudent to either remove the P14 section (seing as it's based on a Mauser action and the only thing it has in common with the L-E rifles is the same calibre and rifling), or else add a section on the Canadian Ross rifle which was another .303 rifle used by the Canadian military in WWI until all the soldiers "lost" them and grabbed SMLEs... again, the only thing it really shares in common with the L-E is the calibre... --Commander Zulu 01:30, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

The reason I made mention of the EM-2 was the Mauser-actioned P14. The .22 trainer was the No. 8 (instructed cadets on it in the past). I see your way of thinking on the nomenclature though - you've done all the hard work so it's your call. One thing I would like to see when this article acheives FA status is work start on individual articles on each of the rifles. Thanks to Skennerton there's enough interesting facts to make it worthwhile. This Lee-Enfield page would serve as an exceptional overview and starting-point page. --Harlsbottom 15:32, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

An excellent suggestion, and one I wholeheartedly agree with. BTW, there was a .22 calibre Rifle No 9 Mk I... it's on page 443 of The Lee-Enfield Story, right next to the No. 8 rifle you know and love. ;) --Commander Zulu 01:06, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

BusterD

I dropped in and reverted what I thought were appropriate locations for citations. If sources for each infobox are the same, then a note to that effect would be appropriate instead of sourcing each box. I'm concerned about usage of words like "momentous." IMHO, you better be saying something pretty momentous to get away with that sort of hyperbole (not likely to find it on a description of an inanimate object). I like "critical period in the development of automatic rifles" or some better worded statement. BusterD 23:12, 11 August 2006 (UTC)