Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Winter service vehicle

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 21:24, 28 April 2007.

[edit] Winter service vehicle

This article reached GA status very quickly (even before it got onto DYK!), and I've been working hard on it since then to expand it considerably, including replacing any dodgy refs with far more reliable sources (books, government agencies, universities and companies in this area) and finding more free images to illustrate the topic. Laïka 17:33, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

• Looks good. A few suggestions: 1. The article is biased towards NA, Europe. What about Asian and Australasian countries? 2. The image captions could do with the names of the countries that they are depicting. 3. Remove low value blue links of common nouns. 4. Some of the sections start odd. "Sometimes..."; "Common at airports" 5. =Safety concerns= is not needed (single section withing a larger section) Merge with parent. 6. It would be interesting to know how these vehicles are used in high altitude places such as the Himalayas. =Nichalp «Talk»= 19:13, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Thanks. I was worried about international bias; I can't find many sources outside US, Canada and Europe. I've found a research paper which describes snow removal in New Zealand and in mountainous regions Japan, so I'll try to work some reference to them into the article. Laïka 19:46, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
    • OK, I've integrated your suggestions. I think it's really helped the article. Thanks! Laïka 20:37, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

      1. One of the most important areas of snow removal are from border areas. Militaries of many countries use these vehicles to effectively man their borders. This aspect should be covered too, since the current text is mostly civilian/commercial? 2. Oregon uses --> "The US-state of Oregon...". I'll support once the low value blue links are removed (yellow, amber, lane, salt etc.) =Nichalp «Talk»= 06:36, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

      • Thanks for the idea; I've added a bit about military snowploughs/snowcats (irritatingly, trying to find any info on military snowploughs just turns up pages and pages about an "Operation Snowplow"). Laïka 07:39, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support =Nichalp «Talk»= 12:50, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support. I reviewed this article for GA a while back. It's come a long way since, and I dare say it's only improved. The prose is good, it is well-illustrated, and very well-referenced for such an "unorthodox" topic (OK, that may just be due to the fact I'm in a tropical country :). As a minor nitpick, I'd like to see all instances of "US" changed to "U.S." as per WP:MOS. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 02:05, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Thanks; I've expanded changed the remaining USes to U.S. (although I've kept the USAs; apparently, USA should not be spelt with full stops). Laïka 10:34, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
• Comment: Don't you think having all the images on one side makes the article off-balance layout-wise? Talking about images, some of them could be a bit larger for easier viewing without much problems. - Mgm|^(talk) 11:14, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
  • The manual of style states that "right-alignment is preferred to left- or center-alignment", especially for inanimate objects such as vehicles (left aligned is only for portraits and centre only for panoramas). I think you're right about size; I'll resize some of the less clear ones. Laïka 11:55, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
  • No it doesn't, my mistake. I've staggered the images on the page for better balance. Laïka 20:14, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
    • Actually, the MOS does not recommend specifying image sizes, so that they may default to the reader's set preferences. Several recent FAs (such as Encyclopaedia Britannica) have had their images "de-sized". Fvasconcellos (t·c) 12:13, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
      • Alright, thanks for pointing that out. I've swapped the images back the MOS-compliant unspecified thumb. Laïka 12:17, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support Meets the criteria. Interesting article.--Dwaipayan (talk) 17:42, 27 April 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.