Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Channel Tunnel/archive1

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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 candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted 20:27, 31 March 2008.

[edit] Channel Tunnel

Self-nominator. An article about an undersea railway tunnel. Commander Keane (talk) 11:34, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

  • Oppose—While it has a lot of good information, I don't think it's quite at FA readiness yet. Some of the writing is choppy (especially in the lead section), lacks flow and it needs some copyediting. Large stretches of the content lack citations. The sentence-breaking dashes flip-flop between a hyphen and an em-dash. There are multiple paragraphs that seem too brief at 1-2 sentences. The first use of units is not wikilinked. &c.—RJH (talk) 22:12, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
    • Good points. Although the article probably still needs a copyedit I have tried to fix up the choppiness in the lead, added more citations to make it clear where info came from (the main lead and history/engineering leads are not sourced since they use info already sourced later in the article, but I could source them if felt it is helpful), I have written out many of the dashes and joined smaller paragraphs, and wikilinked the first use of units (as far as I can tell).--Commander Keane (talk) 02:25, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
      • Thank you for addressing my concerns.—RJH (talk) 22:48, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment Unfortunately I don't have the time to contribute fully to this FAC at the minute, but the article is vastly improved in a short time - esp. in terms of referencing and graphics Image:Channel Tunnel geological profile 1.svg is particularly good. Mark83 (talk) 17:13, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment
    • Some measurements are missing conversions, eg. "2.13 m diameter Beumont-English boring machine"
    • An image caption should only end with a full-stop if it forms a complete sentence. Eg, this isn't a complete sentence: "Opening of the Channel Tunnel by Queen Elizabeth II and French President François Mitterrand in Calais on 6 May 1994."
    • Some date in the footnotes need linking.
    • The ref page numbers are inconsistently formatted; some include "p.", while others don't.
    • Numbers under 10 should generally be spelled out, eg., "British Rail ordered 7 more".
    • There are one or two dead links. Epbr123 (talk) 17:36, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
      • Reply:I have added more conversions, fixed the incomplete caption, I couldn't find the dates in the footnotes that need linking (can you point it out?), ref "p"s have been conformed, I left the "7" in "British Rail ordered 7 more" as throughout the paragraph there are numbers like "46" and "12", but the "7" could be changed. Oh yeah, the dead link is fixed now.--Commander Keane (talk) 08:09, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Comments
    • Can we fix up the references so they are in alphabetical order and the ones that lack authors have something besides the (date) in the front part?
Otherwise sources and sites look fine. Ealdgyth - Talk 14:06, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
      • Reply: I have put the sources in alphabetical order (where there was no author I used the name of the book). I agree having the date first looks weird, I have asked a Talk:Cite book why that is, maybe someone reading this knows the solution?--Commander Keane (talk) 08:09, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
        • Ok I fixed up the references into alphabetical order, putting in the institution as the author works.--Commander Keane (talk) 12:02, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
  • The overlinking was significant—I've weeded some out at the top, but more needs to be done further down. Why on earth are the units linked every time (why even the first time)?
  • "A UK/France government backed scheme"—two MOS breaches: en dash "UK–France" and a hyphen (you tell me where).
  • "a high speed rail line"—no, "high-speed"; there are several of these.
  • "Over a dozen refugees died in various crossing attempts." Pick the redundant word.TONY (talk) 06:02, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
      • Reply:I couldn't find the other area of overlinking, could you help to point it out? The units are not linked every time on my screen, they are linked the first time because someone asked for that above, does anyone know if the Manual of Style says anything about linking units? I think I fixed the hyphen/dash problem, the high-speed hyphen issue, and I fixed the redundant word in the refugee sentence.--Commander Keane (talk) 08:09, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
  • 10 workers died during construction; details? Were these workplace accidents? Or coincidental deaths to be expected given the number of man-years invested in construction?
  • "there was no campaign"; I have no idea what this phrase is intended to mean.
  • Many references appearing as "Flyvbjerg": are all of these references to Flyvbjerg, B. Buzelius, N. Rothengatter, W. (2003) in the bibliography? Or to some other source?
When using both inline references and a bibliography, I think it works better to treat the two sections as independent of each other, ignoring the fact that a source can appear in both. So, give the Flyvbjerg et al in full in the references section.
  • I think the "Tunnels" PBS television show in David Macaulay's Building Big series is worth a mention. It has a lot of film footage of the Eurotunnel construction and is very well done. --Una Smith (talk) 14:19, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
Unless there is a web page about the documentary, how about mentioning it in the text? Surely there are other documentaries? --Una Smith (talk) 14:19, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
  • The article structure is awkward. Several times it introduces a topic then leaves the reader hanging while it goes on to introduce something else. I think some reorganizing is needed, but also the article generally lacks "connecting" prose that helps the reader follow from one topic to another.
I like Rotavirus; I will try to demonstrate in this article what I mean. --Una Smith (talk) 14:19, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
See Talk:Channel Tunnel#History (at FAC). --Una Smith (talk) 15:04, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Reply: I will look into the deaths. I have explained the campaign. "Flyvbjerg" does relate to the item in the bibliogprahy, I have added "et al." - does that help clear up the situation? Do you mean for the PBS television show to appear in a "Recommended sources" section or in an "Appearances in film/literature section? Is some of the awkwardness in the article structure due the "History" and "Engineering" sections having their own summary? Also, if you could provide an example of an article with connecting prose that would be helpful. Regards, --Commander Keane (talk) 03:18, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Now oppose because on second reading I think the article needs significant reorganization. --Una Smith (talk) 15:06, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose - disposition of the section very casual: the usage in the history? MOJSKA 666 (msg) 14:31, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.