Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/USS Illinois (BB-65)/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 14:00, 15 December 2007.

[edit] USS Illinois (BB-65)

I'm nominating this article for featured article because it has passed a Military History WikiProject A-class review, and meets all established featured article criteria. Unlike previous battleship FACs by TomStar81 (talk · contribs), with the exception of USS Kentucky (BB-66), this one is for a battleship that was never completed, therefore the material presented is a little short due to the lack of service history. This can be compensated for if you think of this article as the third in a series of three: the articles Iowa class battleship and Armament of the Iowa class battleship discuss in much more detail the history of the class design and construction and the weapons and combat systems proposed to be installed aboard Illinois respectively. This is a self nomination. -MBK004 (talk) 22:46, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

  • NOTE: I have been experiencing temporary Internet service outages and may not respond immediately. -MBK004 (talk) 22:46, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Support It meets all established criteria, and my logic for the FAC on Kentucky still stands. For an incompleted battleship never considered for a rebuild of any kind this is rather well cited I think. TomStar81 (Talk) 01:07, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Support For being a pretty much obscure subject, and an unfinished battleship on top of it, I must say I found this article to be very good even if it is a bit short. Also, considering the rather short life of the ship, having 9 notes and 2 references is good.--Kranar drogin (talk) 04:54, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
  • I like it I need to check the rules before deciding. I must say that this article is extremely interesting and I am not a fan of ships. It is a bit short. If article length (within reason) not a requirement then that's a major problem out of the way. Mrs.EasterBunny (talk) 22:17, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
    • Here are the requirements from Wikipedia:Featured article criteria related to article length:
      • 1(b): "Comprehensive" means that the article does not neglect major facts and details.
      • 4: It is of appropriate length, staying focused on the main topic without going into unnecessary detail (see Wikipedia:Summary style). -MBK004 (talk) 01:59, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
        • "I like it" is not a good reason to support a FAC. --Kaypoh (talk) 13:02, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose Not ready for FA:
  • One reference per paragraph is GA standard referencing, not FA standard referencing.
  • The article is not comprehensive. It is less than 10 kB. It does not say why the ship was never completed.
  • The lead section is too short.
  • The prose is not brilliant. My English is not very good, so I may be wrong, but:
    • "but the hulk remained until 1958 when it was broken up" Is it "the hulk" or "her hulk"? Maybe change it to "remained until it was broken up in 1958"
    • "She was to be the fifth of the six authorized ships of the Iowa class of battleships." of...of...of....
    • What is a "all welded construction"?
    • "combination riveted/welded hull" I think you are not supposed to use the / this way. If this is a technical term, please wikilink it.
    • "There was thought of" is too wordy.
    • "began in response to" is also wordy.
    • "She was conceived" Huh?
    • I think "at the time" should be "at that time".
    • "the need to gain and maintain" You can remove "gain and".
    • "allied" should be capital.
    • "builders ways" sounds funny.
    • "the bell has been a welcome addition to the football team" is POV.
    • "when the football team scores points in a game." Huh?
  • Why use two units each time, like "inch (mm)" and "miles (km)"?
  • No need to wikilink "battleship" thrice and "fast battleship" twice.
  • Improve the article and try GA first. --Kaypoh (talk) 13:02, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
A class articles are generally, and certainly within WP:MILHIST, considered to be beyond GA; MilHist folks tend to see A Class as a stepping-stone to FA. Carre (talk) 16:16, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
Also, the MILHIST A-class review requires three supports for advancement, while GA is only reviewed by one editor. A-class is reviewed using the featured article criteria instead of the good article criteria. Overall, an A-class review is tougher to pass than GA review. -MBK004 (talk) 03:43, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
    • Comment: After these issues were addressed below, Kaypoh (talk · contribs) was approached on two occasions to revisit his objections.

Respectively:

  • According the MILHIST MoS, one cite per paragraph is acceptable if the information in the paragraph is drawn form one source predominantly.
  • "Like her sister ships Kentucky, Illinois was caught up in the post war draw down of the armed services" How much clearer can we be about why she canceled? And remember, this is essentially the third article in a series of three; the parent class page and the armament page go in to great detail about the weapons that all of the ships were to use and the history surrounding the birth of the class as a whole. When those two pages are combined with this page the total amount of information comes out to over 100kb of information with over 100 citations. Thats well cited.
  • The lead should be comprehensive and inform one of the major points of the article, which Illinois’ introduction does encompass all points of the ships construction, cancellation, and breaking up.
  • Changed to her hulk per your suggestion.
  • All other FA-class Iowa class article use the "x of y of the Iowa class battleships to be completed" format, this article should be no exception; however, if it bother you that much it can be changed to disagree with the other articles.
  • The Iowas were built entirely with a riveted hull design, while Illinois and Kentucky were to be constructed using rivets and welding to increase the overall strength of the ships. If I remember correctly this information is on the class article page, although I could be mistaken. The "/" is appropriate here, because it is not a technical term (although the two terms independently may have articles here, I will check)
  • Changed per your suggestion
  • "began in response to" is appropriate here, I can't think of any way to say that in less than four words and still preserve the meaning.
  • Can't address "she was conceived", as "huh?" indicates cluelessness and not an objection. Decide what you don't like about "she was conceived" and then get back to me :)
  • "At the time" and "at that time" both convey the same meaning, so I see no need to change it, although I will if you insist upon it
  • You have to gain air supremacy before you can maintain air supremacy, and at the time the Japanese still had air supremacy over the Pacific islands. Removing "gain" from the sentence would undermine the role carriers played in the Second World War since it was the Essex class that help the allies gain the air supremacy, and at the same time undermine the role that the battleships played in gaining air supremacy by defending the carriers. Thus tweaking this sentence would reduce the wording at the expense of historical accuracy, which I am understandably loathe to do since this is an encyclopedia and thus should stick to the facts.
  • Changed per your suggestion.
  • Changed Per your suggestion.
  • Changed per your suggestion.
  • Again, "Huh?" is not an objection I can address. Decide what you don't like about it and get back to me.
  • Two units are used for the benefit of our non US members who long ago converted from the standard system to the metric system. This is, if I remember correctly, part of the MoS; units of measurement are suppose to be given in both metric and standard units.
  • Changed per your suggestion.
  • As noted above the A-class review for MILHIST is considered a higher placement than Wikipedia's GA-class review, therefore if an article clears A-class it is conidered a prime candidate for FA-class.
  • If you have any additional questions or concerns, feel free to place them here or drop a message on my talk page and I will see about addressing them. Happy Thanksgiving! TomStar81 (Talk) 22:53, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
Actually Tom, Kaypoh's comment on "It does not say why the ship was never completed." is pretty valid - it's mentioned in the lead, but not in the body. You should certainly know, given your previous excellent articles, that the lead shouldn't contain anything that's not included in the main text. Of course, this is a trivial matter to fix - all it needs is a sentence in Fate.
Love the comment on us non-US users moving away from the "standard system"! Made me chuckle, anyway!
Hope you didn't eat too much turkey on Thanksgiving! Carre (talk) 23:32, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
Good point on why the ship wasn't completed, its been addressed. And why we haven't changed to metric is anyone's guess.
...And yes, I did over do it on the turkey (hello, pepto bismal... ;-) TomStar81 (Talk) 04:21, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment: I'd like to publicly thank User:TomStar81 for addressing the issues seen above in my absence over the American Thanksgiving holidays. -MBK004 02:46, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
  • I've cleaned up some minor issues. This article could really benefit from a reread for 'what goes where': the Background section is actually half construction info; the Construction section doesn't get to actual construction till the second paragraph and contains fate info as well. Additionally, the first sentence of the Fate section doesn't make sense. Let me know if I need to clarify any of this. Maralia 14:39, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose WAY too short (four paragraphs?), missing important details, skips others.I'm not saying this isn't A-class material, but it is not comprehensive;a requirement of an FA. — BQZip01 — talk 04:19, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
Um, I'm not aware of a requirement on length that pertains to FAs. Which important details are missing and which ones were skipped? Also note that this article is one of a series on the entire topic. Most are already FAs. See TomStar81's comments above for more on that. -MBK004 05:04, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Below is the FA criteria:
Criteria omitted by — BQZip01 — talk for the sake of brevity Wikilink above provides the same information and does not clutter up the talk page.
Now, if you can find the minimum size requirement for any article here to be featured I will expand the article to meet the requirement forthwith (I would even sacrafice studying for this, becuase it means that much to me). Also, this page explicitly states that objections here should be based on something that can be adressed, otherwise the objecting vote can be disregarded. Now I respect your opinion on the length of the article, but as I keep pointing out this is part of a series; the articles Iowa class battleship and Armament of the Iowa class battleship discuss in great length and detail the history of the class, the circumstances sourrounding the approval of contruction of Illinois and her sisters, and the weapon systems whe would have been equipped with. Ten citations for a battleship that was 22% complete at the time of her cancellation is rather good I think, and the article doesn't omit any major points of the battleship's history. If you still insist on objecting to the article then cite examples that me and MBK004 can adress, or better yet, change you object to comment and suggest things we could include to improve the article; however, from where I read the criteria, this article is meets all established criteria to be an FA. TomStar81 (Talk) 07:36, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
  1. Please don't get so offended.
  2. I know the FA criteria (I've helped on 5 FAs [all successful] and reviewed several score more)
  3. My objection falls under several parts. The first is that this article may be part of a series, but it should be able to stand alone without those other components. I shouldn't have to look at two other articles to learn the history of the Iowa-class battleships and their armament. That said, an appropriate summary (2-3 paragraphs) of the other articles would be very useful to this article to give it some perspective. Additionally, some more information about the designer, the shipbuilders, the schedule, etc. would be very useful since this ship was never completed.
  4. Why are the references not cited anywhere? Are they even used as references. If not, why put them in? If they are, why not give footnotes as to where they were used?
  5. This may simply be one of those articles that doesn't have enough information available to reach FA status. You should not be upset at that if it turns out to be true.
Specifically, IMHO it does not meet:
1b - the article neglects major facts and details (history of the class of ship and the name at a minimum)
1c - the footnotes should include information about the publishers as well
2
  • Per Wikipedia:Manual of Style (numbers), there should be a non-breaking space -   between a number and the unit of measurement. For example, instead of 61cl, use 61 cl, which when you are editing the page, should look like: 61 cl.[?]
  • Per Wikipedia:Manual of Style (numbers), please spell out source units of measurements in text; for example, the Moon is 380,000 kilometres (240,000 mi) from Earth.[?] Specifically, an example is 700 lb.
2a - The article does not expand upon the naming conventions, what the other 3 ships were in the series, the USS Kentucky, etc. Furthermore, the article's Lead is too short IMHO and does not provide a summary of the text below
2b - missing a "table of contents that is substantial but not overwhelming"
2c - citations are missing pertinent information (like publisher and date) and are not formatted IAW WP:CITE (mostly italicized titles)
3 - a single image outside of the main image. Is this all you could find?
4 - it is not of an appropriate length and needs to be expanded substantially


Lastly, do NOT sacrifice your studies for this. You need to study and do well on your exams. I support keeping this nomination open until 31 December (at LEAST) in order to give you time to do both your exams and this article. Your efforts are not unnoticed and certainly merit extra time to complete this (when was the last time your professors said that?!?). — BQZip01 — talk 17:07, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
Focus on your studies. You can let the FAC fail and file another FAC after your exams. Also, I know this article is part of a group of ship articles but do not assume that people who read this article already read the other ship articles. --Kaypoh (talk) 09:30, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
First off, let me apologize for my above comments; they were not ment to be rude, but apperently they came off as rude, and that was not my intention. Secondly, if you are willing to keep this open til 31 December then I would be thrilled to adress these concerns after finals; and I do apreciate this bending to my schedualling needs. I hate to impose on users like that, but it is hard for me to effectively split my time between school and wikipedia, and knowing I have time to work on this after finals would certainly put my mind at ease on the matter. TomStar81 (Talk) 18:44, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Project Rewrite

After recieving objections from the FAC community regarding the length of the article I have attempted to rewrite the article to better meet our FAC criteria. During the research for the rewrite I stumbled across information that conclusivly proved the U.S.N hull number 65 was originally the mighty Montana, so new material was installed in the article to cover the aspect of Illinoiss life. There are most likely spelling and grammar errors in the article; for these, I apologize; my spelling was never very good. If anyone has questions about the material or the citing add [citation needed] tags to the material and I will see about citing the information forthwith.

I encourage everyone who voted or comment earlier to look at this new, expanded version; your opinion on the article may or may not have shifted as a result of the rewrite. Lastly, I wish to thank everyone who waited for me to finish finals before closing this FAC, although it was not nessicary to do so I apreciated the gesture more than I can possibly hope to impart with simple english words. TomStar81 (Talk) 12:48, 15 December 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.