Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/B-17 Flying Fortress

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

The article was promoted 19:42, 20 January 2007.

[edit] B-17 Flying Fortress

I've spent the last month fixing up and adding to this article. I've referenced practically every fact and It has gone through a peer review, a Militay history WikiProject A-class assessment review, and I think its up to the challenge here. - Trevor MacInnis (Contribs) 20:54, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

• Enthusiastic support - my comments/concerns were voiced in the MilHist review and all have been addressed. - Emt147 ^Burninate! 21:34, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

• Support, looks good now that all the review comments have been addressed. One minor quibble: MoH recipients should all (eventually) have articles, so please wikify the names in that list as well. Kirill Lokshin 21:47, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Done. - Trevor MacInnis (Contribs) 22:05, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

• Object.
  • The references are not correctly listed/expanded, some are just blue links without last access dates, it's not clear all are reliable sources. Some examples - what are:
    • Dornier Do 200 (and, it's not using named refs correctly, to point once to the same source).
    • Biography of Brigadier General Frederick Walker Castle
    • SallyB
    • Northstar Gallery (and there's more)
  • Please expand all references to include full bibliographic info (consider using cite templates), and include last access dates on websources.
  • Something called "Related contents" appears to want to be See also - please review WP:GTL.
  • This appears appended to the end of references, with access date in a different format than others, while the rest of the list is alphabetical. USAF FAQ. USAF National Museum. Access date: 18 December 2006.
  • Specifications has punctuation at the end of list items, while the pilot and crew section doesn't and Surviving B-17s doesn't - I'm not sure what WP:MOS says, but you should follow that and be consistent.
• I don't usually review milhist articles, as they usually get all the loose ends at peer review - I hope the referencing can be cleaned up and completed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:27, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

This went through regular peer review, not military history peer review, incidentally; that may explain the difference. ;-) Kirill Lokshin 22:49, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

ah, I see that now. Trevor, I'm concerned that your introduction to this article mentions "Militay history WikiProject review". I thought that meant a peer review (I now see that's not what is stated). To me, a MilHist peer review confers a level of thoroughness and preparedness for FAC such that I usually barely glance at their FA candidates - they're almost always ready. You might want to reword. I'm confident you can bring the article to FA status, but reviewers should be aware it hasn't yet been thoroughly vetted in a MilHist peer review. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:45, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Yep. The A-Class review is a somewhat different process, and doesn't necessarily go into nitpicky details as well as the full peer review. Kirill Lokshin 02:31, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

'k I've clarified it was an A-class assessment review in the intro. I was unaware of a peer review I could use before coming here, that certainly would have helped things.*} - Trevor MacInnis (Contribs) 03:06, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Working on cleaning up the refs, but for now I'd just like to point out that the Related content section is the see also section, that is to say, what the see also section is on aircraft pages. See Wikipedia:WikiProject Aircraft/page content#Related_content. - Trevor MacInnis (Contribs) 22:47, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Unclear why, then, See also is being renamed - is that standard on MilHist articles, is there a guideline, and why go against WP:GTL? Perhaps Kirill can comment. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:28, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

It seems to be a WP:AIRCRAFT guideline, actually. (It's certainly not one of ours! ;-) Kirill Lokshin 02:31, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, it's a WP:Air guideline. It predates the current GTL and the changeover was not made because the Related content is an extensive section with multiple subheadings and not a simple "see also" (which is one of the subheadings). - Emt147 ^Burninate! 02:52, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

SandyGeorgia, I'm just wondering, is the Related content/See also issue a problem? If so I'll make sure the WP:AIR page is re-written. Also, I'm unsure what you mean about the punctuation. - Trevor MacInnis (Contribs) 19:13, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

• Comment. It looks very good, just a couple of questions about the lead:
  • epic daylight precision strategic bombing - is "epic" not POV?
  • the sentence beginning Combined with RAF Bomber Command's - maybe I'm being dense, but I'm not following that sentence. What combined with the night-time bombing? Trebor 23:15, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

I removed the word epic. About the second part: The whole paragraph summarizes how the B-17 was part of a USAAF daylight bombing campaign, The RAF has a nighttime bombing campaign, and together they had the Pointblank directive, which had each complementing the others desired results. Confusing? Yes. I can't quite get the wording right. - Trevor MacInnis (Contribs) 00:40, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

The new version seems to make more sense :) Will read through the whole article and make a decision. Trebor 00:53, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Support - excellent article. Trebor 01:03, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

• Comment Am I wrong to say that "Operational service" and "Operators" overlap slightly? Even if they don't, a more logical order would be Operational service > Operators > Variants/design stages. Mark83 23:57, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Ops service and operators do overlap, but only when they mention how the USAAF and RAF used them in WW2, most of the section is devoted to other operators. Should the USAAF and RAF part be reduced even more? I'll swap the sections now. --Trevor MacInnis (Contribs) 00:56, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

• Object Has potential, but the refs are not even in a standard format and consider displaying them on a single line, vice two per line. See Gerald Ford, Eagle Scout (Boy Scouts of America), or Scouting for samples of good ref formats. Also, I'm not saying refs can't be in the lead, but if the lead is written as a summary as it should be, there will be few or no refs in the lead. Fifteen refs by the end of the lead is clearly excessive IMHO. Rlevse 01:34, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm working on standardizing the ref, and so far I've been leaning toward the Harvard format. Your comments seem to indicate that Harvard referencing is to be avoided. Is that always true? Also, I'll make sure that if the info is restated in the body (as of course it should be) the ref is removed from the intro. - Trevor MacInnis (Contribs) Ok, I've reduced it down to 9 in the intro (1,2,3 are actually in the infobox), and 3 more (7,8,9) are actually just different examples of its durability. Is it still too much? - Trevor MacInnis (Contribs) 02:13, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

As I work through the article, putting cite webs up etc, I'm seeing that perhaps avoiding Harvard and using citation templates exclusively may be the way to go. How do you deal with items such as the notes that have text along with them. Example: [19] ^ Schamel 2006. On board the plane were... - Trevor MacInnis (Contribs) 03:06, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't like Harvard refs myself, I use cite templates myself. Anyway, for notes, you can just type stuff in btwn the ref tags or separate them from citation footnotes, see Scouting for a sample of how to do this.Rlevse 11:02, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

I've finished converting all reference to the {{cite format. There are a few minor access date format issues to clean up, but basically the bulk of the work is done. Comments? - Trevor MacInnis (Contribs) 23:53, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Much better.Rlevse 12:48, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

• Object 1b and 2a: The second and third paragraphs of the lead section don't summarize information from the body of the article. For just one example, take "the B-17 helped secure air superiority over the cities, factories and battlefields of Western Europe". That statement made me curious: how does a bomber secure air superiority? Then in the article I find the statement "it was not until the advent of an effective long-range fighter escort—the P-51 Mustang—that the B-17 became strategically potent". This makes the P-51 sound like the deciding factor in air superiority. I could imagine that maybe the B-17 was especially directed in bombing German airfields, but the Pointblank directive article suggesting so is an unreferenced stub, and it isn't discussed in the body of this article.

There's the same issue with the third paragraph: if I want to learn more about the promotional campaign, it's missing in the article. I recommend taking every statement in the lead section that requires a citation and expanding on it in the body. Melchoir 02:20, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I've started a revamp of the operational service section, including Pointblank and its air superiority aims. The third paragraph isn't supposed to indicate a promotional campaign per se, but just indicate that the B-17 was an imagination stimulator (more so than other, "better", aircraft). I realize that not much of this is made of in the article, should a section be created about the B-17 in popular culture? This has been suggested on the talk page but I'm not sure how to go about it, usually those sections are to be avoided as "trivia". Maybe I'll try writting a section called "Legacy", just after the operators section. - Trevor MacInnis (Contribs) 04:18, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Wow, great additions! Yes, I'd love to see a section in the article about the… okay, imagination stimulation. I wouldn't call it "popular culture", though, or someone will try to add a list of video games in which a B-17 appears. "Legacy" doesn't really seem to fit; maybe "Public relations?" Melchoir 04:38, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

I've created the section "The Fortress as a Symbol", and moved some of the fluff in the intro there. Sill needs a bit of fleshing out though. - Trevor MacInnis (Contribs) 19:03, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

• Support Yes, the symbol section could use some fleshing out — there's still a one-sentence paragraph in there — but it looks to be well on its way. I do recommend a final sweep through the article to make sure the references issue is taken care of; I found a sentence in "The USAAF" that ends (A.P.). Melchoir 19:36, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

• Support Very well done. - Aerobird ^{Target locked - Fox One!} 18:18, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

• Support I've been tagging along in the wake of the main contributors and watched this turn into a polished article which appears to cover all aspects of a broad topic. A lot of information presented in an interesting and readable manner. Good work. Red Sunset 23:04, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.