Wikipedia:Featured article review/United States Military Academy/archive1

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was delisted by Nikkimaria via FACBot (talk) 2:56, 14 May 2022 (UTC) [1].

United States Military Academy

Notified: Buffs, Ahodges7, Madcoverboy, Alex Middleton, BlueAg09, WikiProject Military history, WikiProject Higher education diff for talk page notification

Review section

This is a 2009 FA that's aged better than some but is still showing its age. I raised sandwiching concerns for this article on its talk page back in June, which went unanswered. Returning to it now, I'm seeing some additional issues. Even considering that West Point has had plenty of notable alumni, the section is still clearly far too long, particularly with the photos (something we've discussed generally at WT:HED and elsewhere several times). Some of the sectioning choices are questionable—why is "commemoration" level 2? And there are smaller tune-ups needed. For instance, I find it questionable to have a notes section just to give a detail about Howard. And what does the 1911 Britannica entry possibly contribute that justifies linking to it in the external links section? Assuming that this doesn't turn around, this is the last URFA on a contemporary higher education institution, and it's an important one (VA-5) in an active topic area (military history), so I hope there's some possibility to save it. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 21:50, 9 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Nick-D I agree that this isn't a FA at present, and would need a bit of work to regain that status. I have the following comments:

  • I agree that the 'Notable alumni' section is rubbish. These sections are generally not great in articles on higher education institutions as they churn out lots of people who go on to do notable things, but the problem is particularly bad here given that West Point is a long established elite institution that has always been focused on educating the future elite of the US Army so a disproportionally high proportion of its graduates have achieved notability. If this section is retained, it should be a thematic discussion of the types of graduates the USMA has produced and the types of impacts they've had rather than just a huge list of names and images.
  • I also agree that there are way too many images. Some of them don't seem well chosen as well.
  • The lead doesn't really capture the historic and modern importance of this institution to the US Army
  • Too many sources in the history section are linked to the USMA
  • "As World War II engulfed Europe, Congress authorized an increase to 2,496 cadets in 1942" - World War II "engulfed" Europe in 1939, not 1942
  • "West Point played a prominent role in WWII; four of the five five-star generals were alumni and nearly 500 graduates died" - surely West Point graduates played this role, not the academy itself?
  • The para starting with 'West Point was not immune to the social upheaval of American society' doesn't really explain what the impact was.
  • "At the height of the Cold War in October 1987, President Reagan visited the academy and delivered a speech about ending the Evil Empire." - no reference, not sure that 1987 was really the 'height' of the Cold War.
  • "but the practice ended in 1973 after national scrutiny" - not sure what 'national scrutiny' means?
  • The article doesn't seem to explain how the USMA fits in with the US Army's broader officer and role-specific training systems
  • The article doesn't explain how West Point graduates are seen in the Army or broader society. Some depictions of 'West Pointers' within the Army depict them as impractical elitists while others are positive.
  • The range of book sources cited seems fairly narrow, with most being non-critical of the institution and/or of low quality. It would be interesting to draw on works analysing the US Army's performance in various wars and works analysing its training system to provide a more rounded assessment. Nick-D (talk) 02:12, 10 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Nearly every general officer of note from either army during the Civil War was a graduate of West Point and a West Point graduate commanded the forces of one or both sides in every one of the 60 major battles of the war" - seems a bit questionable? At least it seems designed to make the rate of West Point graduates seem higher than it was - per Ezra J. Warner's Generals in Gray, out of 425 CSA generals, 146 were West Point graduates, with another 10 who did not complete. Warner's Generals in Blue lists 583 Union generals, of whom 217 were West Point graduates with 11 more non-graduates. When discussing only "generals of note", the terminology is quite vaguely defined but also dubious - cf. Nathan Bedford Forrest, Richard Taylor (Confederate general), Sterling Price, Nathaniel P. Banks, Wade Hampton III, John A. Logan, and many others. I have no idea how they're defining "60 major battles" - the system I see used the most is the Civil War Sites Advisory Commission listing of 384 "principal battles". The list of 384 is further broken down in classes of importance, with the 45 class "A" listings being judged the most important. One of these is the Battle of Mansfield, which was fought between the armies of Banks and Taylor, neither of whom were West Point graduates. I'm sure the sources used for this (two USMA sources and a book written by a former USMA visiting professor) are using their own technical definitions to support this, but these overinflate the claims. Hog Farm Talk 17:52, 10 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Buffs I was tagged in this and feel it's currently inappropriate for me to weigh in on this article's status. I am diligently working on Texas A&M and have significant concerns about this process being tilted against older FAs. I feel that any input here could be seen as attempting to bring down other articles or furthering an agenda. I believe that the article met FA criteria when it was nominated and, in general, is better than 99.9% of the articles out there. our efforts should be focused on fixing these articles, not pointing out their flaws. It's easy to point out flaws. It's tough to fix them. In general, I challenge those submitting FARs to focus their efforts on creating/bolstering content rather than providing criticism of others. Accordingly, I'm going to abstain. Buffs (talk) 17:30, 15 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Addendum: I find it highly disheartening that literally every institution of higher learning that has been brought to this forum was delisted (this is the only one remaining). It may not be someone's agenda to delist them all, but it certainly feels that way. Buffs (talk) 06:10, 23 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
It's indeed disheartening, but for the featured designation to mean anything, we need to ensure that every article we list deserves its star. When they don't and no one steps up to fix them, this is what needs to happen. We should be making every effort to incentivize FA saves, and there's been some great discussion of that elsewhere, but it's a difficult ask. As some silver lining, a delisting is never the end of the road for an article—it can always be revived in the future, and the feedback during an FAR lays the groundwork for that. Best, {{u|Sdkb}} talk 21:32, 23 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
"We should be making every effort to incentivize FA saves" A 100% loss rate? Clearly "every effort" is not happening. Not counting myself, five people have weighed in on the article with no significant attempts to resolve or improve the article. Buffs (talk) 20:37, 27 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Buffs, it's more of a matter that not many editors can write about higher education at a FA level. There's so many FAs that need work that we have to pick and choose where we'd be most effective. Nick-D has helped revive Operation Ten-Go, Z1720 did good work in saving Nigel Kneale from being delisted, Sandy did a lot at J. K. Rowling to keep it at FA, and I recently completely re-wrote Thomas C. Hindman to prevent it from going to FAR. There's just only so much time and energy that those of us who work with older FAs have, so we have to prioritize what we're going to be able to do the best job at saving. Unfortunately, very few still-active editors are capable of writing content about higher education at a FA-level. I for one, wouldn't have little clue of what is considered standard to include, and what generally isn't. Hog Farm Talk 17:14, 28 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Move to FARC issues brought up have not been addressed. (t · c) buidhe 10:56, 19 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Move to FARC, no engagement to address considerable issues, edits since FAR initiation. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:32, 20 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Move to FARC, I guess, there just hasn't been enough going on with this one. I lack the sourcing to even attempt to work on this one. Hog Farm Talk 14:08, 21 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Move to FARC: an IP made significant contributions last week, but nothing else has happened. The lede is too long, with six paragraphs and too much information. Alumni section is too long, and the Traditions section suffers from MOS:OVERSECTION and can probably be trimmed. Z1720 (talk) 15:52, 22 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

FARC section

Issues raised in the review section include organization and coverage. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:44, 23 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist, issues unaddressed, sum of changes since nomination. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:58, 3 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist issues are unaddressed, huge sandwiching and image concerns remain. Z1720 (talk) 14:34, 4 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist - my concerns about the Civil War section are unaddressed. I'm not sure why the article gives that higher of a figure for the Union than Warner, who is considered to be one of the standard works in the field. I suspect that the source here is using brevet ranks to make the count seem higher, which should be noted if that's the case as brevet generals didn't really hold that rank for command purposes and many of them were promotions once the war was over, so they didn't actually even have the brevet in command. Hog Farm Talk 13:53, 5 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist image sandwiching and some uncited text, for starters. (t · c) buidhe 01:33, 12 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist per my comments above, and those offered by other editors. Nick-D (talk) 03:49, 12 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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