Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Civil Air Patrol

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[edit] Civil Air Patrol

This article is a self-nomination. I believe that after working towards making this article a Featured Article candidate, I can honestly say that this is the best single source of information concerning the Civil Air Patrol. I myself am a Civil Air Patrol member, and I think the organization's existance is not known to a greater part of the United States. This article clearly explains in detail CAP's history, missions, and contributions to society. After working on this article for over a month and a half, I am proud to say that this article is an example of Wikipedia's finest work. Linuxbeak 23:17, May 2, 2005 (UTC)

Current status: 7 Support, 0 Object, 0 Neutral.

• Support - Other than the need to format the References section, which I mentioned over IRC that is an extremely extensive article. The introduction is thorough but concise, and you seem to have included a comprehensive range of information. Ben Babcock 23:35, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
• "This is a current article improvement drive collaboration!" I don't get this nomination. If that banner is correct, then this article is still under development. Object based on that along with not having a long enough lead section, and apparently no (or at least very few) inline citations. --mav 00:31, 3 May 2005 (UTC)
  • Much better. I'm changing my vote to a minor object until those inline citations are added. I use template:Inote since that is the easiest. See technetium for an example (you can only see the inline cites in edit mode). --mav 03:06, 3 May 2005 (UTC)
    • More are needed. But a nice start nontheless. Objection removed. --mav 08:09, 4 May 2005 (UTC)
• Support--Joao Campos 23:04, 3 May 2005 (UTC)
• Neutral, bordering on a minor object - Very nice work, but some things that could be improved:

1. Overall: Overuse of 'however', parenthetically give metric equivalents to U.S. standard units (make sure the precision is kept the same though), overuse of 'today' (find and use other alternatives to shake things up a bit), link every date so those with date prefs can get the format they want, overlinking (only link to a term at most once per section), a pet peeve of mine are stub sections (please find ways to logically combine short subsections into larger (sub)sections), more inline cites
2. Lead section: A photo to fill the massive amount of white space that is right of the TOC, terms like 'benevolent entity' and 'admirably' are a bit POV, link directly to Attack on Pearl Harbor, overall each paragraph of the lead could use another expansion (think of the lead as a concise version of the whole article)
3. History section: flowery prose "opening chapters of", Who was the New Jersey governor?, would like to know about those other similar groups that were organized (AOPA Civil Air Guard and the Florida Defense Force), 'monumental achievement' and 'astonishing' = POV (show, don't tell), "In the southwestern United States, the wolf population had grown to dangerous levels." and "wolf problem" is very POV (in fact it was encroachment of ranchers into wolf habitat that caused the conflicts), "stellar wartime record" = POV (again, show don't tell), ASIDE: with a bit of expansion the history section could be spun into history of the Civil Air Patrol, allowing for a more compact treatment of the history at Civil Air Patrol#History (a bit over half the current length of that section would be ideal in that case)
4. Missions section: Unclear what 'Award' refers to in the boxes unless one reads the whole section
5. Members section: "dues are US$76 per year" as of what year?, inline cites needed here as well

--mav 08:09, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

• Support- Most of the above concerns have been addressed. --mav 01:27, 7 May 2005 (UTC)
• Support. Although the topic isn't too interesting to me, the article itself is well-written and informative. It's a little long and I'm not sure if the rank insignia are needed, but despite those shortcomings it's worthy of being a featured article in my opinion. AngryParsley 03:50, 5 May 2005 (UTC)
• Support Well written article, maybe a little too long but, the information contained in the article makes it requires that the article be that long. User:Marine 69-71
• Support. Obviously a labor of love, which cuts both ways, but I think Linuxbeak has been sensitive to NPOV issues and has successfully dealt with them. This is a type of subject that Wikipedia needs to cover better, and the article seems to me to be a model of its kind (with the caveat that I'm as distant from being an expert as is well possible). Disclosure: I've done some general, and superficial, copyediting. --Bishonen | talk 13:59, 5 May 2005 (UTC)
• Support Excellent article worthy of being a FA. Brings back memories when I was in the cadet program so many years ago.... Petersam 20:24, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

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Comments

• • References have now been reformatted to correct style. Linuxbeak 23:44, May 2, 2005 (UTC)
  • It's of my own opinion that just because the article is under the article improvement drive it doesn't mean this article isn't ready for Featured status. The article is complete, and the article improvement drive will bring that: improvements. Remember, featured articles aren't perfect, either. Second, the lead section sums up CAP... what else do you want? That's what the article's for. Finally, why do I need inline citations when I've already given credit to the sources that I pulled information from? Linuxbeak 00:42, May 3, 2005 (UTC)
    • Okay. AID tag removed. I'll try to lengthen the lead, but it might be tough... it's pretty concise as it is. Linuxbeak 00:54, May 3, 2005 (UTC)
    • Done. Lead has been extended to three paragraphs. Linuxbeak 01:12, May 3, 2005 (UTC)
      • • Done. They're chiefly in the history section, but I've added 'em. Linuxbeak 10:56, May 3, 2005 (UTC)
        • Even more done. I added about four or five more. Linuxbeak 22:23, May 3, 2005 (UTC)
  • Dues have been fixed (should be $35, not $75) and inote added. Will attempt to address others later. Linuxbeak 11:47, May 4, 2005 (UTC)
  • Although this might be splitting hairs, the term "benevolent" is used in its literal definition (organized for the purpose of doing good) [1]. Agreed some other parts are on occasion POV; will address. Linuxbeak 11:52, May 4, 2005 (UTC)
    • Most POV issues dealt with, including wolf section. Linuxbeak 00:01, May 5, 2005 (UTC)
  • Reduced usage of the word "however" from 12 to 6. Added metric equivalents. Linuxbeak 00:01, May 5, 2005 (UTC)

• • • I've stricken the points you've fixed so far. One new thing introduced that needs to be fixed is the precision given in the metric equivalents. Things like '500 feet' are almost always imprecise numbers. So it is very wrong to give an exact metric equivalent of that (in this case 152.4 meters) since that adds an excessive amount of precision that was very likely not intended by the original info. In this case (150 m) should have been added after the 500 ft. --mav 01:33, 5 May 2005 (UTC)
      • Issue numbers 4 and 5 completely dealt with now. Please note that Public Law 476 specifically states that CAP is a benevolent entity, so this is in no way POV. Linuxbeak 03:05, May 5, 2005 (UTC)
        • So you are saying that the 79th U.S. Congress was an inherently neutral body? If they used that wording then say so. But just throwing around the wording they used without attributing that wording to them, is a violation of our NPOV policy. --mav 16:07, 5 May 2005 (UTC)
        • Much better. --mav 01:27, 7 May 2005 (UTC)
      • Added photo to fill void. Linuxbeak 03:28, May 5, 2005 (UTC)
• Personally, I'm not at all read on the AOPA Civil Air Guard or the Florida Defense Force. I mention those only because I know (and have researched) that they were precursors to CAP. I will leave the wikilinks there in case anyone who knows more than me wants to create articles about them. Linuxbeak 10:46, May 5, 2005 (UTC)
• Task 1 addressed. Task 2 addressed. "flowerly prose" addressed. Linuxbeak 22:05, May 5, 2005 (UTC)