Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Pre-dreadnought

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 promoted 20:06, 28 November 2007.

[edit] Pre-dreadnought

I'm (self)-nominating this article after a successful A-class review and peer review. It's part of my ongoing mission to have better articles about naval warfare (Battleship and (Ironclad warship already done, dreadnought next up). The Land 16:05, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

• Image:MIKASA&TOGO.jpg (on Commons) has an obsolete image tag, and Image:HMS Commonwealth HS.jpg has both copyrighted and public domain listed. I noticed this caption while checking images: "HMS Canopus fires her 12-inch main guns in anger at a Turkish shore battery"—a ship cannot have anger. Rewrite in an encyclopedic tone, and please do this in the article as well, if this type of writing is found there. Pagrashtak 17:12, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

• "firing guns in anger" is a standing phrase and used to indicate use of the guns to shoot at an opponent (as opposed to e.g. test firing). It is not indicating emotion (by either ship or crew). Still, I agree that this particular instance is a bit jarring. --Stephan Schulz 17:30, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, not up on my war terminology I suppose. How about something along the lines of "HMS Canopus fires a salvo from her 12-inch guns while bombarding Turkish forts"? (Taken from the Commons description page.) Pagrashtak 17:40, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Modified it to the simpler "HMS Canopus fires her 12-inch main guns at a Turkish shore battery (1915)", and let the "in anger" be implied. --Stephan Schulz 18:13, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

There is no doubt about the acceptability of either image. The Mikasa image is one of User:PHG's he has placed in in the PD. Since Commonwealth was scrapped in 1921, the photo was taken before 1923, so the image is public domain in the USA. All of this is perfectly plain from the image description pages. The Land 19:29, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Then the problems I mentioned should be easily fixed. Pagrashtak 22:15, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Not to be pedantic, but the problems are not problems with the article or even the images, only the image tagging. Fixing them would be good, but has little to do with this article review. --Stephan Schulz 23:17, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, we do need to check that there aren't any images that cannot be used in the article. One of the FA requirements is that Fair-use images have a fair-use rationale. Adam Cuerden ^talk 03:54, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Right. But as The Land has laready pointed out, both of the pictures are unquestionably PD. --Stephan Schulz 07:54, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Here are some quotes from the image talk page: "The image copyright at this time belongs to Jarek Ariga", "the exact source is unknown", "it is presumed this image was published before the ship was scrapped in 1921" (emphasis mine). What part of this is unquestionable? Having all images tagged correctly is a requirement for a featured article, so this is entirely pertinent. Pagrashtak 19:05, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

No, image tagging is noo an FA criterion: "It has images and other media where they are appropriate to the subject, with succinct captions and acceptable copyright status. Non-free images or media must meet the criteria for the inclusion of non-free content and be labeled accordingly.". And are you seriously suggesting that the photo of Commonwealth was taken two years after she was scrapped? The Land 20:08, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

And how do we convey acceptable copyright status on Wikipedia? With an image tag. I believe the image was taken before 1923. I don't know when it was published, which is what determines the copyright status. I've never questioned the year the image was taken, so please do not put words in my mouth. Pagrashtak 20:55, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

You're winning the award for lamest contribution to an FA request here; however, the article can live without the images. The Land 21:17, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

That's not very civil. If you have a problem with Wikipedia's image policy, I suggest you take it up on the policy talk page. Pagrashtak 21:45, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Oppose for now Support. Its a good piece but I have some style issues and general comments. The stuff listed below is mainly minor and shouldn't take too long although there are some more tricky pieces.

• 1st paragraph of "Evolution from the ironclad" is uncited, and makes statements that couled really use sourcing.
• "impossible to fight on the high seas" (fight who? contemporary ships?)
• Can you name an example of the historians who see them as essentially pre-dreadnoughts and an example of one who doesn't?
• "due to" is better than "thanks to"

I've deleted the first paragraph: it wsn't actually saying anything. And I've re-worded the rest a fair bit. The Land 10:48, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

• First paragraph of armament is only one paragraph, either merge it into a larger paragraph or expand into a full introduction to the section.

Done. The Land 10:48, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

• The Battle of the Yellow Sea is one engagement and should not be described as engagments. Make the statistics specific to the action in question. Also link Sino-Japanese War

Think I've solved this by removing an extraneous sentence. First Sino-Japanese War is linked several times.

• Merge and perhaps expand the two short paragraphs which conclude the "Armaments" section, particulaly elaborating on the torpedo tubes.

Torpedo tube elaborated. The Land 10:48, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

• "supported those powers' colonial expansion." needs a source.
• It isn't made clear that the Spanish did not deploy any pre-dreadnoughts during the Spanish American War.
• link gunboat diplomacy.

both done. The Land 11:45, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

• Europe section has a one line paragraph at the start, merge it into the longer paragraph below.
• "principally to further" might read better as "principally as a consequence"

done and done. The Land 11:45, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

• First three paragraphs of "Obsalensence" must be merged, expanded and sourced. This is a very important section which isn't given justice at the moment.

Have worked on it - what do you think is missing? The Land 11:45, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

• Section on Canopus at the Falkland Islands, name the battlecruisers (Inflexible and Invincible is memory serves).

Linked the class, rather than the individual ships. The Land 11:45, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

• Section on forcing the Dardanelles is rather clumsily phrased and needs revising.

Any better? The Land 11:45, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

• It may be worth mentioning that Pommern was lost with all hands due to her lack of compartmentalisation (I think Geoffrey Bennett mentions this in his "Battle of Jutland").

Don't have a reference to it: if so, it should go in the

• World War II and today section need expanding and tidying. Mention should be made of the mass scrapping and destruction of most remaining pre-dreadnoughts in the early 1920s and some explination of how Mikasa survived (i.e. the many auxiliary roles into which pre-dreadnought survivors were pressed following WW1).
• The article might also benefit from some statistics regarding pre-dreadnought losses in battle (I think I have some books somewhere with this information in, but it'll take a long time to dig them out) if you find something then it would benefit the article greatly, especially in regards to WW1.

In all this is a wellworked and referenced piece but it is not there yet. Paragraph and some sentance structure needs work and some areas of the article would benefit from expansion. The sections on armaments, propulsion and armour are exemplary (barring minor issues), but some of the historical sections need work. Have you seen "War at Sea in the Ironclad Age"? [1] Its pretty good on the historical aspects of this subject. Once the issues above are addressed, I would be happy to reassess my opinion of this article.--Jackyd101 10:11, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for all of that! will get onto it this weekend. I have 'War at Sea in the Ironclad Age' - it's what I would call an 'entry-level' resource (the Sondhaus book I cite is a much more detailed coverage of the same period of time). The Land 10:17, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Excellent, I thought the book I mentioned might be useful as Wikipedia is itself an entry level resource and I was unsure of your depth of knowledge. Sondhaus is indeed much better. Keep up the good work.--Jackyd101 10:33, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Think I'm getting there with the 'evolution' section: any further comments? The Land 10:09, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Been a but busy, but will have a look at this tomorrow. Is it ready for another assessment?--Jackyd101 17:31, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Yep. You might still think there are places where you'd like to see more - if so tell me how and where. The Land 18:19, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

<deindent>Much better, but I still have some notes.

• It seems a touch confusing for the uninformed reader to have the first picture be one of an HMS Dreadnought given the article's title. Is there a picture of Devestation or Royal Sovereign which could go in there? If not, then at least give a date for the ship in the caption, to make as clear as possible which dreadnought is being referred to.
• I can't find the Bennett book, so leave that for now.
• I suggest removing the header today before the comment on the Mikasa. That sentance could be easily moved to the end of the World War II section and the photograph moved up, potentially to where the Mikasa was mentioned before. The single sentance paragraph looks a little untidy where it is.

And thats it, a much improved article and one I would be happy to support. In an additional note, if you are having trouble with copyright notices, then I suggest claiming fair use for the pictures you want on the off-chance they are still under copyright. It might also be worth looking here for images as all on this website are outside copyright restrictions. --Jackyd101 09:32, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

• Is there a statement to that effect somewhere? They do have HMS Ramillies, a Royal Sovereign class ship. --Stephan Schulz 20:50, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

The page I linked to above has a statement on it that to the best of the page owners knowledge, all images used on the site are in the public domain.--Jackyd101 10:26, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! I overlooked this.--Stephan Schulz 12:24, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

• Weak oppose (for now) Support. I agree with Jackyd101 (and thanks for the detailed comments!). It's a good article, but it still missing something to make it into a great one. Maybe it concentrates to much on the use of the term (I find the discussion about the first "pre-dreadnought" a bit tedious (and the Royal Souvereign's certainly qualifiy, so its ALL WRONG! ;-)). I think if we go through the list and take care of the points, we will have something much better. --Stephan Schulz 10:58, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

• The current version is more satisfactory. The images are much better. It would be nice to find some online-sources to complement the books. --Stephan Schulz 20:41, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

• Comment. There are some tiny paras that would look better after merger. Some sections can use more images. More problematic, there are still uncited claims.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk} 00:28, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Which claims are worrying you? Ah, I see you've added some fact tags. The only things there which will cause any difficulty are the fates of the German and Greek PDNs in World War II, because the sources I have don't hand don't cover that. With respect, I'm not sure that there needs to be a citation provided for statements like "pre-dreadnoughts continued in active service and saw significant combat use even when obsolete" when there are several cited instances of doing just that in the following section. Re the images, I'm sure I can find a few more. The challenge is to avoid having 15 black-and-white images of near-identical battleships! The Land 10:31, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

With some help I've found refs for everything you tagged. There are also a lot more images in the article now. The Land 16:30, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately there are still uncited paras and sentences; hence I cannot support.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk} 22:17, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Of course you are free to have any opinion you like. But is there any potentially contentious point that needs referencing? We don't need to have a footnote on every sentence. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:34, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

• Support - All issues seem to have been satisfactorily dealt with. Excellent article. -MBK₀₀₄ 18:57, 27 November 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 candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.