Wikipedia:Featured article review/Iowa-class battleship/archive1

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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 kept by User:Marskell 12:57, 19 August 2008 [1].

Iowa class battleship

There are not enough words in the English language to impart to the community the extent to which I really do not want this article up on FARC, but its been three long years since the article was presented here, and much has changed in that time both on the article itself and in the FA/FAC procedures and standards that we now hold such articles to. It is with much difficulty today that I finally managed to find the courage to place this article here, with the recognition that as the user who has worked on it the most these last three years, including its initial run through FAC back in '05, I am in all probability the user who will work the hardest to ensure the article stays at FA class.

Thanks in part to those of you who commented during the Montana class battleship FAC, I know for an absolute fact that some of the articles source are of questionable value (FA criterion 1c), and I am aware that in the three years since the article was at FARC both weasel and peacock words have wiggled back into the article. Aside from adding specific examples here for my benefit, I need to know what else needs to be done to ensure the article remains top notch. I am in summer school at the moment, so if I appear slow to respond here please be patient with me, in all probability I am occupied with school work, but I intended to throw my all into this after summer school ends (about the first week of August). TomStar81 (Talk) 02:52, 24 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Also, the need to maintain this article to the FA standards is made more important by the fact that this subject (the class of battleships) is about to become a Featured Topic once two more articles attain FA status. -MBK004 02:55, 24 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Here goes what I can turn up, but be warned that I may not be the most level-headed when dealing with this article since I've tried to maintain it. -MBK004 06:17, 24 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    ...tell me about it ;-)
    • Keeping up on current events, the section on reactivation potential and the Zumwalt-class destroyers needs to go under a microscope because of the recent announcement that the Zumwalt class will only have two vessels because of costs. Hence, what are the effects to the NGFS picture? Also, thinking about the summary style of the article, it might be about time to split this section out to its own article. If it isn't at that point, it will be shortly because of these recent events.
      • This latest move by Navy with regards to the DDX will likely impact the upcoming National Defense Authorization Act, if it does, then we can break out the section and building it into an independent article. At the moment though the descion to stop construction at two DDX destroyers doesn't directly impact the Iowa's, though I suspect that will change soon.
        • Ok, I did a little digging on the Zumwalt class and it appears from the wording in the NDAA that at the moment the DDX program is being suspended to that the CNO can review his options; at the same time it appears that the USN has reversed its postion on the DDG-51's and is now considering constructing additional DDG-51 class destroyers. Taken as a whole this seems to be a good indicator that the DDX progam is dead, but I think a wait and see aproach here may be best to ensure accuracy.
      • I have added information on the apparent cancellation of the DDX program to the article, though more may be added later if and when I can find a copy of the NDAA for 2009.
    • Make sure that each paragraph in the History section has at least one reference (some don't have any), and more than two would be ideal. Also, try to merge the short paragraphs together (remember what they taught you in Comp I at university about paragraphs, multiple sentences).
    • Article could use a thorough copyedit by someone who hasn't seen the prose before.
    • I know it will be tough, but the Engineering plant could use more references and I know I'm beating a dead horse but that section is rather thin overall compared to the armament and history.
    • I may add some more bullets later if I see some other things. -MBK004 06:17, 24 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

Comments

  1. Dump the pop culture section, all this does is attract people to add more silly entries. Try to work the more important mentions into the article if they directly effected the subject ie: Missouri in a movie and not one of the ships in a video game etc. If it won't fit in the article, dump it.
    Not nessicarly, there are very strict guidelines in a hidden notice at the top of the page explicitly outline what can and con not go into the section. So far, the notices has worked as intended by redirecting attempted inclusion to the talk page first. None the less I will look into removing the section via the suggested methodes.
Please read some of the recently passed FA's that Bellhalla wrote. They're nicely done and introduce pop culture topics in a way that remains encyclopedic and doesn't attract people into adding references about GI Joe cartoons (the bane of my existence over at Constitution) This saves the effort of having to explain over and over again to people trying to insert trivia. --Brad (talk) 20:26, 25 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  1. For all of the DANFS citations use <ref name="Ship">{{cite DANFS|title=|url=|accessdate=}}</ref> it creates uniformity in the references.
    Done. — Bellhalla (talk) 20:05, 25 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  2. In the references section use: <ref name="NAME">{{cite book|id=ISBN|title=|last=|first=|publisher=|year=}}</ref> for the same reason as 2.
    This has been addressed with the exception of one source (noted on article talk page). — Bellhalla (talk) 02:19, 25 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Dispense with the Discovery Channel as a major source.
    Actually, it was (originally) added to cite two statements, but as with the pop culture section I can scrap it if the need arises. TomStar81 (Talk) 03:00, 25 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    This was actually on the Military Channel, not the Discover Channel, so the link has been updated accordingly. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.108.25.1 (talk) 22:38, 31 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Use the ability of the infobox to have separate sections for the various changes it went through over the years.

--Brad (talk) 20:28, 24 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  1. Here are some book sources: Battleship Missouri : an illustrated history ISBN: 1557507805, The complete encyclopedia of battleships : A technical directory of capital ships from 1860 to the present day ISBN: 0517378108, Mighty Mo, the U.S.S. Missouri : a biography of the last battleship Newell, Gordon R. ; The Iowa class battleships : Iowa, New Jersey, Missouri & Wisconsin ISBN: 0806983388, Battleships of World War Two : an international encyclopedia ISBN: 185409386X , American battleships : a pictorial history of BB-1 to BB-71, with prototypes Maine & Texas ISBN: 1575100045, U.S. battleships : an illustrated design history ISBN: 0870217151 , Battleships of the U.S. Navy in World War II ISBN: 0517234513 , United States battleships in World War II ISBN: 0870210998 ,

--Brad (talk) 20:28, 24 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I own a few of these if you need access for page numbers and verification, see: User:MBK004/Library. -MBK004 03:14, 25 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by doncram
(numbering to allow easier reading; this is really just one comment:)

  1. What attracts my attention is the use of DANFS material and the very small text note This article includes text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. at the very end of the references section. I think that the incorporation of public domain text into the article, with this small disclaimer, undermines the quality of this otherwise great and obviously well-researched and well-sourced article.
  2. There is now only a guideline on plagiarism in draft form, and no explicit policy yet, in wikipedia on this issue. I am one who believes that any appearance of plagiarism is worth taking steps to avoid, and I hope that discussion here will eventually provide more explicit policy for featured and less-refined wikipedia articles. I think it should give specific guidelines that public domain sources should be treated like any other, with the important exception that very long quotes from PD text are possible, unlike for other sources where only shorter passages can be quoted under "fair use" rules.
  3. I, and at least some others, believe that "incorporating" public domain text into an article without use of quotation marks and other treatment that is necessary for referencing non-public domain text is not good practice in general, and I further believe that it should be disallowed in featured articles. Although great swathes of wikipedia were built by pasting in public domain texts such as from the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica, it is also believed by some that there were mistakes in doing that, or that was a different time, and there is sentiment that different practices are needed.
  4. One way that it compromises the value of wikipedia articles, that I focus upon, is that it makes others' reliance upon the articles difficult. How is a scholarly work, or a student term paper, supposed to cite a featured wikipedia article, as of a certain date, of mixed sourcing? With the public domain incorporation, it is not correct to cite the collective wikipedia editorship as being the author of some pithy phrase; the phrase may well have been the exact wording of the public domain text that should be credited instead. A conscientious consumer would need to understand the significance of the public domain disclaimer at the bottom of the article, and go and explore all of the DANFS articles mentioned, in order to ferret out how to credit properly any quote from the wikipedia article. This is an unreasonable burden, and it would be costly to try to educate those who would be conscientious of the necessary machinations.
  5. Because I have analysed other ship articles, I am in a position to understand the meaning of the fine print notice, and to link that to the occurrences of DANFS mention within specific references further above. Without performing an exhaustive review, I believe that use of DANFS material is located in only a few locations in the article, specifically at the four instances of footnote 30, and the single instances of footnotes 40, 42, 44, 45, and 49. These are 9 instances from 5 footnotes out of a total of 110 footnotes in the article. It is possible that directly copied passages of DANFS material existed at those locations at one time, but have been combed over and revised so much that they are no longer recognizable as DANFS quotes. So it is also possible that only a very little editing would be required to treat the DANFS material like any other source (adding a quote or two of any particularly apt phrases, and rewording some other passages to avoid using DANFS's words).
  6. I ask that the wikipedia editor, revising this article, give some consideration to the value of avoiding different treatment of the DANFS source material, and consider revising the article to allow fair removal of the small-print template about DANFS use. doncram (talk) 21:43, 25 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Striking my comment above, as TomStar81 responded below that his review of the article indeed justified DANFS text was no longer incorporated, and he removed the general DANFS disclaimer, and as it has been suggested to me that my striking is then appropriate in FAR process. It was discussed more fully in the Talk page to this review whether my comment was appropriate to make at all. But anyhow with respect to this article my comment was indeed fully addressed. I believe the following comments make no further call for edits to the article, but i didnt write them so I don't believe/don't know if i can strike them. Again the point raised seems to have been fully addressed for this FAR. doncram (talk) 02:10, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have been reworking some of the references for this article and am not the article creator, nor was I involved in its writing. Given that, I don't know that the {{DANFS}} template is even appropriate on this article. In the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships (DANFS), there generally are not articles about ship classes, so I'm not sure why the tag is in place. Specific information about each ship in this article is cited to each ship's entry in DANFS.
  • With that said, making an accusation of plagiarism beating around the bush with hints of (and the implication of) plagiarism in this article is a pretty extreme example of not assuming good faith on your part. If you have specific instances of plagiarism in this article, please list them so they may be corrected. Otherwise, please strike your comment, because it is entirely inappropriate. You and I (and others), have butted heads before over the use of attributed public domain text in Wikipedia. I am aware of your positions on the issue, and believe that they are against the general consensus in the Wikipedia project. Those discussion are best held in appropriate fora, and not here, where we are reviewing the featured status of this article. — Bellhalla (talk) 22:22, 25 July 2008 (UTC) 12:18, 26 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(thread edited for clarity - complete thread as of 05:03 26 July 2008 is at the FAR talk page) Franamax (talk) 05:28, 26 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

So the question here seems pretty simple: has the copy-pasted PD text been substantially rewritten to the point that the general reference is no longer required? Note that this extends beyond just the original wording to the original structure of the text. Also note that words such as "battleship" and "campaign" do not qualify as original wording, and simple timeline descriptions do not need attribution to the original PD authors. So what is left? Are there distinctive phrases remaining from the PD source, like "the old lady tiredly went once more forth to battle"? Is there a distinctive structure to the text that was copied from the PD source, telling a story rather than laying out temporal facts? If not, the footnote attributing to DANFS -IMO- should be removed - it has no justification. If those distinctive traces remain, they should be individually identified for purposes of FA review. Franamax (talk) 01:02, 26 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Simply put, the answer to your question is yes, but I believe the cites to DANFS need to remain in. Understand that this article is part of a series, drawing material from each of the other six battleships for the ships section. Right now we could remove the {{DANFS}} template, but not the cites to the individual DANFS ships histories; as that would be in itself a form of plagerism by dening the role that DANFS material had in the building of the ship section. TomStar81 (Talk) 01:19, 26 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I was just suggesting removal of the general DANFS template disclaimer, if there is no longer any use of "incorporated" but unquoted text. I was not suggesting removal of the separate DANFS references that support the facts. doncram (talk) 05:03, 26 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I've removed the {{DANFS}} template from the article. Does this meet your request? TomStar81 (Talk) 05:35, 26 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, thank you. I accept completely that your familiarity with the current text removes any need to perform the kind of automated cross-checking that I was offering to perform, and I am glad of that as it would not really have been very easy to do. doncram (talk) 05:52, 26 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments 2 by doncram

  • The formulas for speed and for capital ship speed in the article are interesting, but lack units. Is it speed in terms of knots per hour, as a function of ship length measured in feet? Depending on the units of measure used, the constant in the formula would be different. I kinda like how succinct the statements are in the article proper, without getting bogged down in what are the units involved, so perhaps the clarification --perhaps with a relevant example on the scale of one of these ships-- should be in the footnotes. doncram (talk) 07:58, 26 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • I have looked at the article passage a few times, and believe that the quantity is probably meant to be read as knots, but as it doesn't say that specifically I think it would be premature to put words in someone else's mouth. Davis has sited two reference for the material on speed, and I am trying to track them down. I will get back to you on this as soon as I can. TomStar81 (Talk) 17:44, 15 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I find the following passage convoluted, and wonder if it represents some unfortunate compromise:

"When firing two broadside per minute a single Iowa-class battleship can put 36,000 pounds (16,000 kg) of ordnance on a target per minute, a figure that can only be matched (and in some cases beaten) by a single B-52 Stratofortress of the United States Air Force,[53] which can carry up to 60,000 pounds (27,000 kg) of bombs, missiles, and mines, or any combination thereof." I assume the main point is that the Iowa-class battleship can deliver 36,000 pounds of ordnance in one minute, and in the next minute and the one after, while a B-52 can only do it at that rate for 1.6667 minutes and then it is done. Perhaps something like: "When firing two broadside per minute a single Iowa-class battleship can put 36,000 pounds (16,000 kg) of ordnance on a target per minute, a rate of delivery that can only be beaten for a short time by a single B-52 Stratofortress of the United States Air Force,[53] which can carry at best 60,000 pounds (27,000 kg) of bombs, missiles, or mines."

I'll look into this and much more tommarow, right now its 4:00 am and I am exhausted. TomStar81 (Talk) 09:23, 26 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
My (admittedly quick) read of the B-52 source seems to find only a payload of 10,000 lbs., not the 60,000 currently quoted. — Bellhalla (talk) 23:46, 26 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Specifiactions section, armament subsection, says "Bombs: up to 60,000 lb (27,200 kg) bombs, missiles, and mines, in various configurations", although the cite for that has dissappeared since I last looked. The intro now says 70,000 lbs ordinance, but like the 60,000 lbs quantity this also has no cite. TomStar81 (Talk) 00:57, 27 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I suspect there is a trade off between B52 range and bomb carrying capacity. But if I was the USAAF I'd classify that sort of detail. I think the article is fairly typo free, though can I suggest someone double checks the names of the Bismark's Barbettes, esp Ceaser. Also is BBBG correct? BBG would stand for Battleship Battle Group. Also can I suggest a bit more detail on the crew? It mentions 2700 in the 40s and only 1800 in the 80s, What do they all do? Why were 900 fewer needed? What were the conditions they served under and, and is it true that they didn't get alcohol in their rations? Jonathan Cardy (talk) 00:57, 3 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
BBBG is correct, the US uses a dual letter system to ID its vessels (DD for destroyer, BB for battleship, FF for frigate, and so forth), and as luck would have it Battleship Battle Group has its own article here in case you were curious. The rest of your questions are complex enough that I will need more time than I could have here to locate and answer all of them adequately. On the issue of personel, I can give a preliminary answer that there was some modernization work done which reduce some weapons and installed others that were less manpower intensive. Like I said, I can tighten that up for you when I find better info on the material. As to the B-52 comment, it was meant to provide people with an equipment camparison, though if need be it can be removed. TomStar81 (Talk) 15:11, 18 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
FYI: the B-52 can carry around 54,000 pounds of ordnance. In Vietnam, the B-52 was modified to carry 108 500-lb bombs, so it can at least carry that much. This is not classified info and is publicly available per the START treaties. — BQZip01 — talk 03:51, 7 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Images I can't find Image:Wisconsin museum.JPG at the original source, presumably it's been removed in a web-site redesign. Can we be sure that it was taken by a US sailor? DrKiernan (talk) 14:27, 12 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

We can. A handy trick to recalling such information is to go through the internet archive, which saves a particular version of the web page(s) from a specific time period. According to the upload log, the image first appeared here in september 2005, by going through the internet archive I found the original page, and as you can see in the image section the site reports that all images are credited to the U.S. Navy, and thus, are PD-USGov. TomStar81 (Talk) 02:27, 13 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

How do people feel about this one? Much left to do? Marskell (talk) 16:48, 18 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think the quotes are formatted correctly (someone pls check WP:MOS), image captions aren't punctuated correctly (see WP:MOS#Captions, full sentences have periods, sentence fragments do not), and portals belong in See also per WP:LAYOUT, so it's always confusing to figure out what to do with them when there is no See also. I prefer to see them moved up, to the top of References, but that's personal preference. I also see some errors in logical punctuation; User:Epbr123 is good at these sorts of fixes, if someone wants to ping his talk. If Bellhalla is satisfied, so am I, after these minor fixes. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:18, 18 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The issue with the quotes came up earlier, and I made a point of asking the MoS people directly what they thought about the use of the quotes in the article here's a link. The ruling on the field was that the quotes were good and did not need to be changed, but that was with the respect to word limitations at the time. I'd be open to more input on the point if anyone would like to weigh in on there use in the article. I will look into adressing the rest of the issue you brought ASAP.
I have removed the portal reference to military of the United States since our milhist templates links directly link to the portals in which the articles appear, this having been done explicitly to reduce the appearences of the "x portal" templates in the article namespace. That leaves the commons template, but the fact that commons is a seperate site I tend to group it in with the external links (though I would be open to moving it if others agree to do so as well). I have also tweaked the image captions to comply with the MoS, though I am not sure I got everything correct.
To Marskell: the key issue here was questionable source (FA criterion 1c), but I have made a move to locate and eliminate all the external links that were judged by the community to be iffy. The rest of the material (excluding relevent MoS issues which can and will be adressed as fast as I can [leigably?] type) should be more or less a large pool of suggested improvements as oer a peer review, therefore we ought to be able to list those on the article talk page and invite editers to look into implementing the suggestd improvements as time permits. Thats my opinion anyway, but its your call, so I defer to your judgement on the matter. TomStar81 (Talk) 20:52, 18 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Looks like Epbr got to it today. I think this is good to go and that article talk can indeed accomodate future changes. Marskell (talk) 12:50, 19 August 2008 (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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