Talk:Battle of Vukovar/Archive 4

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Archive 5

Next steps: a call for assistance

Well done and thank you to everyone who helped to get this article to featured status. Great job!

The next step will be ensuring that it appears on the Main Page on November 18. Specific dates can be requested at WP:TFA/R, but there is a limit of five nominations at any one time. We need to wait until a slot opens up - most likely when Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare gets the nod for November 5 or 8.

However, there is a complication - if you look on Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests/pending there is a request for three videogame articles to be featured on that day. I believe that Battle of Vukovar is likely to be favoured for reasons of timing and propriety, but we can help to increase the likelihood of its appearance. In particular, extra points can be earned if the article's topic is "widely covered", meaning there is an article about it in at least 20 Wikipedias. We are three-quarters of the way there already, with articles in 15 Wikipedias (see the languages sidebar on the article page). We need another 5 articles. It doesn't need to be long; just a summary will do. Are there any multilingual volunteers for doing this? Prioryman (talk) 18:49, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Well done, once again for the FA. As far as the TFA request is concerned, the WP:TFAR page actually says that "There may be no more than five total requests on this [requests] page at any time for a specific date, and one request for a nonspecific date." - which would mean no more than five requests for November 18 - if I understand that correctly.--Tomobe03 (talk) 19:08, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm afraid not - I've done this before. It's five specific-date requests in total at any one time. That's why there's a queue. Prioryman (talk) 19:13, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Right. Perhaps it would be expedient to prepare a blurb (needed anyway for the TFA) to have translated?--Tomobe03 (talk) 19:33, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

On the second thought the lead section on its own is a great summary for the purpose.--Tomobe03 (talk) 20:13, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

I can produce the blurb, but it doesn't need to be translated. What I'm referring to above is producing (short) versions of this article in other languages so that the "widely covered" bonus point can be gained. We need versions of the article in five more languages. Prioryman (talk) 20:31, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Great job, congratulations on the FA! I've just spent some time studying WP:TFAR. (30 minutes of my life I'll never get back. The rules resemble a some sort of a game, and definitions of "Importance" and "Diversity" are bizarre in effect: Battle of Vukovar is "unimportant", while Atari Jaguar would have been "important"; Battle of Vukovar is also not "diverse", while Coca-Cola would have been "diverse".) If I understand it correctly, if there were similar articles on the Main Page recently, the only way to get extra points is indeed to create that five articles. "Easy" ones even for non-multilingual editors: Czech -> Slovakian, Bokmal -> Nynorsk, B/C/S -> Bosnian.

I couldn't help but notice that the latter bit would seem quite disingenuous, because we already have hr, sh and sr on the list. I'd rather let things take their normal course than to explicitly engage in such silliness. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 22:51, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Again, if I understand the rules correctly: some of the upcoming requests trump the Governor of Kentucky, so why aren't they moved into the main list? GregorB (talk) 20:23, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Because of the five concurrent nominations requirement. Some of the requests may have more points but there is a strict queue system, so it's really first come first served.

The scoring rules are a bit wacky, but this is how it will work for us:

• 1 point is gained for 18 November being a relevant date.
• 2 points are gained for a decennial anniversary (i.e. 20 years since the event).

So we have a baseline of three points whatever happens. However, we can gain up to three more points if the following conditions are met:

• 2 points are gained if five more versions of the article are produced in other languages, making the topic "widely covered". We can achieve this if editors can produce versions of the article in languages that are not currently represented. See the languages sidebar on the left-hand side of Battle of Vukovar to see which languages are already covered.
• 1 point is gained if the person making the request is a significant contributor to the article and has not previously had an article appear as Today's featured article. That rules me out. However, Joy might qualify for this if he hasn't previously authored a featured article and is willing to make the request.

(Yes and clearly yes :) --Joy [shallot] (talk) 22:45, 28 October 2011 (UTC))

If we satisfy these conditions we can get up to six points in total.

Now, as for the competition... :-) The alternative proposal waiting in the queue is for a trio of articles about the Zelda videogames to feature on the same day. They currently have point scores of 1, 3 and 3 respectively. However, if the proposal for Call of Duty 4 to feature on 5 November goes through, which looks likely, the Zelda articles will lose 3 points each and will go down to -2, 0 and 0. In addition, I expect they will face opposition because the timing is intended to coincide with the launch of the latest Zelda game. This will certainly raise concerns about the propriety of running the Zelda articles on that day because of the possible commercial benefit to Nintendo.

Overall, I think Battle of Vukovar is well-placed, but anything we can do to increase its point score over the next two weeks can only benefit it. Prioryman (talk) 20:46, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Ok, that's clear enough now. Perhaps Joy should apply then to secure an extra point if that's not a problem? I'll see if I can enlist several translators to produce stub articles at least. Finally, maybe we could scan through Croatian War of Independence article interwiki links to intelligible languages (whichever those might be to each one of us) to see if there is a tolerable section/chapter/passage that could be spun off?.--Tomobe03 (talk) 20:54, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

One down thanks to User:Piet Delport.--Tomobe03 (talk) 21:37, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Two down thanks to User:Alensha. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 23:13, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Three down thanks to User:Kostja. Only two to go now! Prioryman (talk) 09:19, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Four down thanks to User:Joshua.--Tomobe03 (talk) 14:56, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Last one done by User:Ruud Koot. Target achieved! Prioryman (talk) 22:07, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Albanian done by User:Ryangibsonstewart. That's 21 :-) Timbouctou (talk) 12:21, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Glad I could help. :) - RyanGibsonStewart (talk) 01:43, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Polish is now available thanks to User:Marek69...--Tomobe03 (talk) 09:13, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

BTW, we don't actually need to be hell-bent on November 18, because the fall of the town took some time, since the Vukovar massacre happened on the 20th and the 21st. Clearly the battle was done and the town had already been destroyed, but because of these closely linked events, IMHO any of the dates between the 18th and the 21st would do just fine. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 23:00, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

18 November would be preferable, since that ties in with the commemorations on the ground. Prioryman (talk) 23:21, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Also, we may lose two or three points if a similar article is nominated, too. What constitutes a similar article, any battle article, any 20th century battle article, or? --Joy [shallot] (talk) 23:03, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Any battle article, I think. If a similar article appears on the Main Page in the 2 weeks before the requested date, 3 points are deducted, and 2 points are deducted if it appears within the last month. Fortunately we probably won't be affected. The most recent similar article was Battle of Valcour Island, which appeared on 11 October. There are no other battle articles in the pending requests list. Prioryman (talk) 23:21, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

True, and if the 18th is in question, with the game article up on the 5th the "competition" points would be reduced further due to the two-week window. By now two translator-editors came through, ten more or so may be on the way yet.--Tomobe03 (talk) 23:37, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

I've asked a couple of editors myself and if we're lucky we might get the Portuguese, Spanish and/or Albanian versions soon. Timbouctou (talk) 00:27, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Now that the twenty interwiki links are there (several more may be there yet), is there anything else to do regarding the TFAR preparation?--Tomobe03 (talk) 09:55, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes - I'll write up a lead text for the Main Page and post it here for comments. Prioryman (talk) 11:26, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

I was asked by Timbouctou to translate the lead section of this article into Albanian. Here it is:

Beteja e Vukovarit ishte një 87-ditor rrethimi i Vukovarit në Kroacinë lindore nga Ushtrisë Popullore Jugosllave, mbështetur nga forca të ndryshme paramilitare nga Serbia, në mes të gushtit dhe nëntor 1991. Para Luftës Kroate e Pavarësisë, qyteti barok ishte një komuniteti i begatë, të kroatëve, serbëve, dhe grupeve të tjera etnike. Në vitin 1990, politikat nacionaliste, të ndjekura nga Presidenti Sllobodan Millosheviçit të Serbisë dhe presidenti i Kroacisë Franjo Tugjman, çoi në shpërthimin e një kryengritje të armatosur nga serbët e Kroacisë, të mbështetur nga qeveria serbe dhe grupet paramilitare. Si militarët serbë kroat mori kontrollin e serbëve të zonave të populluara të Kroacisë, ushtria jugosllave filloi të ndërhyjë në favor të rebelimit. Konflikti shpërtheu në rajonin lindor kroat të Sllavonisë në Maj 1991. Në gusht, ushtria jugosllave ka nisur një sulm në shkallë të gjerë kundër Kroacisë-territori mbajtur në Sllavoninë Lindore, duke përfshirë edhe Vukovarit.

Vukovari u mbrojt me rreth 1,800 ushtarë të armatosur lehtë të Gardës Kombëtare Kroate dhe vullnetarë civile, kundër 36,000 ushtarëve yugosllave dhe paramilitarët serbë të pajisur me forca të blinduara të rënda dhe artileri. Gjatë betejës, predha dhe raketa u qëlluan në qytet në një normë prej 12,000 për ditë. Në të njëtën kohë, kjo ishte beteja të ashpra dhe më të zgjatura në Evropë, dhe Vukovar ishte i pari qytet i madh evropian shkatërruar tërësisht që prej Lufta e Dytë Botërore. Kur Vukovar ra në 18 nëntor 1991, qindra ushtarë dhe civilë u masakruan nga forcat serbe, dhe së paku 31,000 civilë u dëbuan nga qyteti dhe rrethinat e saj. Vukovar ishte pastruar etnikisht nga jo-serbe popullsisë së saj dhe u bë pjesë e vetëshpallur Republika e Krajinës Serbe. Disa zyrtarë serbë ushtarake dhe politike, duke përfshirë edhe Millosheviqit, ishin të akuzuar më vonë dhe në disa raste u burgos për krime lufte të kryera gjatë dhe pas betejës.

Beteja rraskapitur ushtrinë jugosllave dhe i provoi një pikë kthese në luftën kroate. Një armëpushim është shpallur disa javë më vonë. Vukovari ka mbetur në duart serbe deri në vitin 1998 kur ajo ishte ri-integruar në mënyrë paqësore në Kroaci. Ajo ka qenë që rindërtuar, por ka më pak se gjysma e popullsisë së para luftës dhe shumë ndërtesa janë plagosur ende nga beteja. Dy komuniteteve etnike kryesore të tij mbeten thellësisht të ndarë dhe nuk ka rifituar prosperitetin e saj të mëparshëm.

I hope that helps! - RyanGibsonStewart (talk) 02:44, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Can you please move that at sq:Beteja e Vukovarit? :) --Joy [shallot] (talk) 08:22, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

I did that just now :-) Timbouctou (talk) 12:23, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

TFAR update

Someone else has got in and nominated a battle article for November 8th. Unfortunately if this passes - and I think it's certain to - we'll lose three points. On the plus side, the Zelda articles have all been removed from the list of pending requests due to their negligible scores. So overall, I think we should be OK. It's just as well we got the points for the interwiki links and the first-time nominator, though, otherwise this would have wiped out all the points for the nomination. Prioryman (talk) 18:21, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

I don't see the Nov 8 nomination, where is it? In any case, filing this as we speak. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 08:25, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

November 7, sorry. It's already been accepted and is in the Main Page queue for that date. Prioryman (talk) 08:30, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Pyrrhic victory

Does anyone else think we need to reference this statement further? http://www.google.com/search?tbm=bks&tbo=1&q=pyrrhic+victory+vukovar seems clear to me, at least I don't see any source even trying to contradict such a description. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 14:10, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

I referenced it using page 99 of CIA's book. Timbouctou (talk) 14:36, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

NB, the here's the referenced quote in full:

The JNA's failure to seize the town despite its overwhelming force would be a dispiriting embarrassment to the federal cause, while the Croatian forces' prolonged resistance became an inspiration ad rallying point for the troops and people of Croatia. When the JNA finally captured Vukovar in mid-November after two months of intense fighting, theirs was a Pyrrhic victory. The siege had completely disrupted the timetable for the JNA's strategic offensive and dissipated the last of the JNA's prewar spirit, which had already suffered catastrophic damage in Slovenia and in the battles for the Croatian barracks.

— CIA Office of Russian and European Analysis, Balkan Battlegrounds: A Military History of the Yugoslav Conflict, 1990–1995: Volume 1, pp. 99–100

Timbouctou (talk) 14:57, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

There's plenty more [1], [2], [3] if necessary.--Tomobe03 (talk) 15:01, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

There's no characterization of the outcome in the body text right now. How about adding to the "Fall of Vukovar" subsection a sentence to the effect "The XY characterized the outcome as a phyrric victory" followed by appropriate references (all four if deemed necessary)?--Tomobe03 (talk) 15:19, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Well, the first and second source you linked seem to be the same text by Susan Woodward published in two separate books, both quoting the CIA source (the Notes section is not available in Google Books view but I could check once I get the EPUB version of the second book to work). The third source you linked is a statement by Borković, a Croatian commander, so could be seen as biased. So I'd stick with just using CIA as a source for that claim. And it's not in the infobox now because the same Belgrade-based IP has removed it (again). Timbouctou (talk) 15:26, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Well, one cite should do. If the CIA book isn't available online, perhaps the CIA source (with quote parameter used) might be accompanied by another citing it.--Tomobe03 (talk) 15:30, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

OK, I managed to look into Susan Woodward's book (Balkan tragedy: Chaos and Dissolution after the Cold War). On page 258 there's the quote describing the fall of Vukovar as a "Pyrrhic victory", sourced to an article by Miloš Vasić, "the military expert" of the independent Belgrade weekly Vreme from December 1991 (the note is on page 489). So we've got CIA and a Serbian military analyst quoted directly in Woodward's book. That should suffice. Timbouctou (talk) 15:53, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Blurb for TFA

Here's a proposed blurb for TFA. Note that I've gone with the tank picture rather than the water tower, as the latter requires some explanation:

The Battle of Vukovar was an 87-day siege of the Croatian town of Vukovar by the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) and paramilitaries from Serbia, between August–November 1991. In 1990, Croatian Serb separatists launched an armed uprising, supported by Serbian President Slobodan Milošević, and seized control of Serb-populated areas. The JNA intervened in favour of the Croatian Serbs and launched an offensive in August 1991 against Croatian government-held territory. Vukovar was defended by around 1,800 lightly armed Croatian soldiers and civilian volunteers, against 36,000 JNA soldiers and Serbian paramilitaries equipped with heavy armour and artillery. When the town fell on 18 November 1991 after prolonged fighting, hundreds were massacred by Serb forces and the town's non-Serb population was expelled. Vukovar was peacefully reintegrated into Croatia in 1998 after the end of the Croatian War of Independence and has since been rebuilt, but deep ethnic divisions remain. Several Serb military and political officials, including Milošević, were indicted and in some cases jailed for war crimes committed during and after the battle. (more...)

Any comments? Feel free to amend the text if you feel the need to. Prioryman (talk) 11:54, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Generally, I find the blurb fine, with two remarks/propositions:

• The proposed text contains 1,697 characters including spaces (1,431 w/o the spaces), while the the WP:TFAR indicates ca. 1,200 characters length limit, so perhaps it would be good to see if a slight trim-down is possible without losing anything significant.
• A native speaker of English should proofread the blurb just in case. Perhaps John could do this.

Overall fine work.--Tomobe03 (talk) 12:54, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

I trimmed the blurb slightly. Would it be acceptable to replace "shells and rockets" with "missiles" (for short)?--Tomobe03 (talk) 13:06, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

I've trimmed it further to 1,200 characters exactly. Apparently we have to count markup as well as spaces. Prioryman (talk) 13:10, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Looks good. I just added missing diacritics.--Tomobe03 (talk) 13:12, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Great, thanks.

On another issue altogether, I see that the Croatia equivalent of this article is also an FA. Has it been on the Croatian Wikipedia's Main Page before? Is there a possibility that it could appear there on 18 November? It would be nice to have the English and Croatian Main Pages synchronised for a day... Prioryman (talk) 13:22, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

The blurb looks good. I'd definitely prefer the water tower though but if that's inconvenient the tank will have to do. As for the Croatian Wikipedia - the article was featured on their main page during the first week of 2009. Timbouctou (talk) 13:27, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

OK, thanks for the clarification. The problem with the water tower image is that it's fairly meaningless without a caption. A tank does at least have the advantage of being immediately and obviously related to the battle. Prioryman (talk) 13:30, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

One pattern that I noticed both with the article intro and this is that we omit the mention of the wider context of the breakup of Yugoslavia. It's implicit, and the current text is not really biased regardless, but I still think we might want to make that more explicit. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 08:41, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Nominated for Today's Featured Article for 18 November 2011

Thanks everyone, this is now at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests#November 18. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 08:39, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Joy, it's looking good. Prioryman (talk) 08:56, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Ta-da. :) --Joy [shallot] (talk) 00:15, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

All of you who worked on this article should be extremely proud of yourselves. A very difficult topic, done so well, and a pleasure to read. When editors can collaborate on something so controversial and create encyclopedic content of this quality it renews my faith in WP. Cheers! LoveUxoxo (talk) 21:40, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

Well done! The article achieved more than 45k views on the 18 November!--Tomobe03 (talk) 02:05, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

Extra traffic also came the next day, and to the war article, a protagonist, the city, etc. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 11:16, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

mentioning both nationalist politics in the intro

I knew we were going to end up here but I tried to hope that we wouldn't. Oh well. The intro says:

In 1990, as Yugoslavia began to break up, nationalist politics pursued by Serbia's President Slobodan Milošević and Croatia's President Franjo Tuđman led to the outbreak of an armed insurrection by Croatian Serbs, supported by the Serbian government and paramilitary groups.

User:Wustenfuchs removed the bit about Tuđman saying:

Nationalist policy was led only by Milošević. Tuđman had right for independence, and was not nationalist.

I reverted this because the rationale is plain wrong IMO, but I am amenable to the argument because there is a not-so-subtle dispute in meaning here - what leads to an armed insurrection? I think we have consensus that both sets of policies were nationalist, but saying they both led to the insurrection implies that they were equal, that each of their effects had an equal part in creating the insurrection. I'm afraid that's just not true - someone who takes up arms and starts shooting people can't somehow magically blame someone else. (Even Croatian criminal law comes to mind - if someone attacks you with a knife, you can't shoot them with a gun and expect it to be treated as automatic self-defence. IOW everyone's responsible for any escalation of violence.)

There's another sentence that compares propaganda and says they're analogous, leading with Croatian and then talking about Serbian. That's another possible point of contention. In both cases, the article text goes on to nicely illuminate the facts and clarifies how the Serbian side was in the wrong (I'm simplifying this for the sake of shortening discussion...), but the two sets of introductory statements still strike me as a bit too naive for their own good. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 11:08, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

IMO a lot of things and events contributed, i.e. "led", to outbreak of war -- Don't defend against a would-be attacker and there'll be no war.

As far as "nationalist policies" are concerned, I'd say that both were nationalist, with quite a difference in methods and means, but I don't think it would be meaningful to analyze them in an article that doesn't deal with the policies directly. IMO it's OK and needed to say (and reference) that both were nationalist policies and that one particular was militaristic, aggressive, etc. The claims should be properly referenced and all of the elaboration should be in the body text.--Tomobe03 (talk) 11:23, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

There's no doubt in all paper sources that both Tudjman and Milošević are considered nationalists. There's also no doubt that popular support for nationalist policies escalated on both sides in response to the other sides' actions. There's no doubt that before the siege proper began you had things like Croatia's defence minister personally firing anti-tank rockets at Serb houses, and you also had Merčep's paramilitaries harassing people. A lot of things led to the armed insurrection and a lot of the stuff Tudjman and his pals publicly said or did was a red flag for the paranoid Serb population. The article is fine as it is, it explains everything that needs to be explained in the body and there's no need to insist on such nuances in the lede.

There is IMO nevertheless a legitimate case for an examination of the issue according to WP:LEADCITE. If we know that there's a substantial population who do insist on such nuances, and we're going to put this on the front page, it would be unwise to leave it unhandled. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 15:04, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

I don't think there's anything to handle here. There probably isn't a single book written on the subject out there which does not describe Tudjman and HDZ as nationalist and there are many commentators who have described their actions as factors which contributed to the escalation of violence in the early 1990s, the insurgency, etc. HDZ greatly contributed to the political polarization at the time and if there weren't things like the 1990 constitution (which downgraded the status of Serbs), it is pretty likely that Milošević's nationalism wouldn't have gained such a foothold among the Serbs in Croatia.

*sigh* Please don't fight a straw man. I'm not disputing the entire timeline or whatever, but instead saying that our sentence is so concise that it's no longer sufficiently precise. If we speak of an outbreak of Serb insurrection in 1990, then we must be referring to the August 1990 Log Revolution. The downgrading of the Serb status in the constitution happened in December 1990, and Merčep &co. operated in Vukovar in mid 1991. So the highlighted nationalist policies could not have led to the insurrection in the conventional meaning of that verb, because it had already been started. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 19:14, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

The lede is supposed to summarize the body, and that sentence is part of the summary of the Background section, which is itself really a summary of breakup of Yugoslavia. Our subsection here only mentions that the 1990 election brought a "pro-independence nationalist party" in power and that Tudjman was "overtly antagonistic" towards Serbs, without mentioning any details. I suppose this is what Prioryman had in mind when he chose that wording in the lede. Timbouctou (talk) 19:44, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Well, that's just it - that sentence as such is not part of the Background section. Instead, the background section says that it was SDS who mounted an armed rebellion, blaming the HDZ, but it nicely steers clear of supporting the said accusation - because that would have given SDS's POV an undue weight. (Speaking of which, in the Croatian parliamentary election, 1990 they won 2% of the vote, which is miniscule even compared to the 12.2% of the ethnic Serbian population in the 1991 Croatian census.) There is no dispute as to the nationalist nature of HDZ, but saying their behavior led to the Log Revolution equally as much as their antagonists who actually implemented it, is currently simply unsupported by references, and leaving this in as is, is just going to enable their sympathisers to cry foul. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 09:51, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

I think I fixed it, and I also took the opportunity to change another sentence from passive to active voice. :) --Joy [shallot] (talk) 10:06, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Anyway, there was ample opportunity for this to be raised during the FA nomination, why raise it now? Timbouctou (talk) 15:38, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

The obvious retort to that is that they didn't notice it at the time, which is perfectly legitimate. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 19:14, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

If I want to read how the Serbs started everything (actually, the Brits as well) I have plenty of POV material over at hr.wikipedia to choose from. What Wustenfuchs did was vandalism and he has been here long enough to know better. Timbouctou (talk) 13:17, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

I really think there's no point escalating this with an essay by a banned user and similar issues that have little to do with the specific point I'm trying to address. Please let's not stray off-topic, because this is difficult enough as it is. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 15:04, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree there's no point in escalating this situation. The article is about a battle, not about the war. This article should (and it does) provide sufficient background to the battle and everything in addition should not be here as it is redundant to have the same detail in the war article, this battle article, propaganda article etc. If another article, specializing in the nationalism in former Yugoslavia or its impact on the breakup of Yugoslavia is notable enough and there are references and interest to create it, that should be the avenue of action... There's no point in adding anything other than summary background, and as it already does so, I see no reason to change anything in that respect...--Tomobe03 (talk) 15:29, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

• Approve the revert to the consensus version that passed FA. --John (talk) 15:49, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

• Thanks, John - I agree too. Prioryman (talk) 18:22, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

• Did you have a look at the fine-tuned version? --Joy [shallot] (talk) 22:13, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

• Yes, I think these recent changes are ok. As always when we do our best work on here, it's been developed as an ongoing collaborative process, and you guys should take some kudos for that. To write a great article, then stand back and let people change it and mess with it, and to come back and compromise; it's really the best. I won't embarrass you further here, but keep up the good work. --John (talk) 07:34, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Tank in the picture

I'm not 100% sure, but I think that may be an M-84 in the picture (going by the sensor at the front of the turret roof and the arrangement of the smoke dischargers visible in the photo) and not a T-72. I'll go ahead and change it. Feel free to revert if I'm wrong.Mike McGregor (Can) (talk) 01:31, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

At the review, others also noted it might be a T-72A variant or M-84. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 08:14, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

M-84s were essentially locally produced licensed copies of the T-72, but with several improvements that we're mostly internal. The only real visible differences to the exterior of the take are that sensor and the smoke dischargers. They also have a diffwrent fire control system, a diffrent engine and improved armour.Mike McGregor (Can) (talk) 21:59, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

Even though the T-72 base model does not have any smoke dischargers the T-72A and T-72M (export model) do have them. Yugoslavia acquired a relatively small number of T-72s for evaluation, but I cannot find any source saying whether those were the base models, or As or Ms. The T-72 article contains an image sourced to the JNA bearing description saying it's a T-72M. Still proportion of the JNA T-72 inventory to the M-84 inventory is very low, so chances are that is an M-84 indeed.--Tomobe03 (talk) 22:48, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

Sí es un M-84. 300 awhoo awhoo (talk) 16:37, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

Who's sourcing who?

The TFA placement of the Battle of Vukovar attracted not only 45 thousand views on the 18th alone, but also a press coverage of the TFA! Nacional (weekly) ran this story on their website... Just out of curiosity - I guess this makes the Battle of Vukovar article notable on its own.--Tomobe03 (talk) 02:20, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

Well, either that, or that journalist simply doesn't know how exactly Wikipedia and the (T)FA process work :) His generalization is overly ambitious, because the truth is that it only took, say, two dozen interested editors to make this happen, not the entirety of the Wikipedia community. Although, when I think about it some more, that's pretty much how things can happen in the rest of the publishing world, so I guess we might not be so different after all. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 12:19, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree. Regarding the article, I wish the journalist said something about its content - its quality and depth - rather than the fact it appeared on the Main Page. (Although, to be fair, that's tangential to the newspaper article's subject anyway.) Also, I don't think Wikipedia is a "web portal" (he could have used Wikipedia itself to look that up :-) ). GregorB (talk) 12:28, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

Borsinger

I've moved the following to talk so it can be fixed to the article standard - the reference needs to be formatted, preferably changed to a written English one. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 10:54, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

On 18 November, the delegate of the International COmmittee of the Red Cross, Nicolas Borsinger succeeded in becoming involved in the surrender negotiations and demanded to be allowed to register the names of the Croatian combatants who surrendered. This furnished proof that these people were alive and had indeed surrendered. His action saved the lives of approximately 200 people.

Problematic picture caption

We have this: A bomb dropped on Vukovar Hospital by a Yugoslav Air Force jet on 4 October 1991 penetrated five floors to the basement where it landed on a patient, who escaped uninjured. The picture though shows the reinforcing rods are intact, seemingly nothing large could have penetrated. I am guessing that what happened was that the impact caused a spall of concrete to fall onto the person below. Are there any sources for this because I am not happy with the caption as it stands. --John (talk) 12:21, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

According to an article in the Journal of Croatian Studies, which I can see on Google Books but can't access in full at the moment, "The other bomb penetrated the roof and went through four floors, ending up on the lower part of a patient's (Pero Vukasin's) bed. This bomb failed to explode and, after it was examined by police experts, it took eight men to carry it out of the hospital." The number of floors seems to vary between sources (this one says four, the one I cited says five, others say six). An eyewitness speaking at the ICTY says "We thought that the hospital would go on fire because that had already happened several times, but then someone said that a bomb fell directly into the shelter. I went there and at the entrance to the shelter since a big bomb had fallen, I saw that it had fallen directly onto the bed where a patient was lying, by his feet. So this was an elderly man called Pero Vukasin. I heard that he is still alive, that he lives in Vukovar nowadays. So that bomb did not explode but it penetrated the roof and all the floors." [4] The accounts all state that the bomb itself came though, not just spalled concrete. I agree that there's a contradiction between this and the photo, but for all we know the roof was subsequently patched up. I think we have to go with the sources here since they all give the same story. Prioryman (talk) 12:33, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

Thank you, I accept your word for this. I wonder if we could adjust the caption slightly? --John (talk) 12:55, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

Certainly, please feel free to amend as you see fit. Prioryman (talk) 13:02, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

See what you think; I have tried to accommodate the seeming disagreement between the various sources you refer to and the pictorial evidence. --John (talk) 13:19, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

That looks fine to me, thanks. Prioryman (talk) 14:32, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

Article is unobjective, and onesided.

I have read the entire article and I can only say that the article is unobjective, onesided, and wrong. Specially the comments made by Washington Post journalist who says "serbian insurgents". Insurgents are rebbels who are fighting against an authority or authority of United Nations. Since Croatia in 1991 was not a country it was not recognised by UN, calling Serbs insurgents is criminal. Second Serbs and Yugoslavs (mixed families) made a total of 65% of the Vukovars populations. Meaning those who called themselves Croats were a minority.

Second this article fails to mention that the Croat nationalists called "ustashe" were executing and blowing up houses, caffes, buildings, of Serbians in Vukovar before the war started. Croatians were the agressors to begin with. First victim was a Serbian man who I knew. He was killed on may 1. 1990 as he was celebrating the Yugoslav holiday and was carrying Yugoslav flag. He was killed by a Croatian neighbour who pulled out a handgun approached him and shot him in the head saying "there is no place for Serbians here"

Furthermore antoher Crotian terrorist action happend in Borovo Selo in 1991, where Croatian nationalists dressed as police masked in circus buses entered Borovo selo and killed a Serbian man sitting in a caffe reading newspapers. This man was a territorial defense leader. After hearing gunshots many Serbians came out of their homes with guns they owned and returned fire at Croat provocators killing them. Later Croats reported that they were massacred. This was another propaganda.

It pains me to read such a one sided article about a town where I was born and raised. I was in the war and I have seen what happned. Many hundreds of Serbian more correctly thousands of Serbian civilians were murdered by Croat nationalists during the war and before the war. Entire Serbian family of 8 was murdered by Croat forces, murdered in such a way that it resembled Jasenovac sytle murders. They used baseball bats and axes to decapitate living Serbian civilians. A youngest child they killed was only 6 years old they shot him in the head at point blank after murdering his family. Countless Serbian civilians were murdered and thrown in Danube river only to be discoveded down flow couple of kilometers in Vojvodina. Serbian civilians were killed and burned to conceal the evidence.

This article fails to mention that at the time Yugoslav army was the only authority in Yugoslavia. Croatia was a part of Yugoslavia at that time, while their government could not legally announce independance without Serbian population accepting this. As Serbian population was the constitutive peoples of Croatia. Serbian rights were illegaly crushed by Franjo Tudjmans, HDZ and this meant that Serbs became a second class citizens in their own country, as they are today in Croatia. UN did not recognise Croatia until 1993. Meaning that so called "croatian defenders" were legally branded as terrorists who tried to cause a sucession and etnic cleansing of Serbian population in Croatia.

JNA which was the Yugoslav peoples army intervened and tried to stop the war by mediating between Croat nationalists and Serbian paramilitary and militia which stood up to defend Serbian people and land from another genocide such as the one croats commited in 1941-1945. Croats brought back their nazi ustashi past and were continuing the same politics that criminal murderer Ante Pavelic started in 1941.

JNA action in Vukovar was legitimate, and every serious country and government would do the same if this kind of problem arised in their domain. Imagine Bavaria claiming that its not longer German, and that they are now Bavarians and all non Bavarians must be either killed or cleansed from Bavaria so to achieve a total pureness and domination of only one nation. This happend in Croatia and entire Europe and Western world stood behind Croatia as they systematically commited ethnic cleansing in 1995 where they forced 320 000 ehtnic Serbs from their land and killed over 3000 Serbs who stayed at their homes.

This is only a little taste of truth behind Vukovar. The numbers of croatian nationalists "defending" Vukovar was around 5000 not 800 as Croatian media popularly says to glorify their invovlement in the war. Croats were well armed with modern equipment bought for them by croat nationalists living abroad. Including newest snipers, antitank weapons, from Germany and Austria. They even had German tanks which were captured by Serbian forces after the liberation of Vukovar.

If you want to know the truht, do not read this article as its one sided and biased. Search for different sources and read all of them and you will see the truth. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.213.94.73 (talk) 12:00, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

• What specific improvements are you suggesting?
• Which reliable sources are you proposing to use to reference them? --John (talk) 12:59, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

So many policy violations in just one section... --Joy [shallot] (talk) 23:22, 26 December 2011 (UTC)