Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/USS Massachusetts (BB-2)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Promoted -MBK₀₀₄ 03:10, 20 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

USS Massachusetts (BB-2)

Nominator(s): Yoenit (talk)

Featured article candidates/USS Massachusetts (BB-2)/archive1

I am nominating this article for A-Class review as I am attempting to make it a Featured article and a thorough A-class review is an important part of the process. Massachusetts wass the US second real battleship and received neither the attention of USS Indiana (BB-1), nor the glory of USS Oregon (BB-3), making her probably most notable for her bad luck. Many thanks to everybody who reviews (or otherwise improves) the article. (Note: Article is still at GAN, but only issue remaining is a copyright tag on an image, which will be resolved soon or the picture replaced)Yoenit (talk) 11:00, 8 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

It's true that Friedman (pp. 24-25) specifically mentions approval by the House of Representatives in April 1890, but "then" (presumably also in 1890) the Senate also signed off on the 3 battleships (and 2 smaller ships, btw). Normally when you see "the House approved X in year Y" in a U.S. newspaper, it means that the Senate did not approve it, which was not the case here, so I reworded. - Dank (push to talk) 19:47, 8 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- seen, learned, stored. Yoenit (talk) 06:50, 9 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
In the Design and construction section, I get that you want the focus to be on just this ship, but in the first paragraph, first you're talking about the design of all 3 ships, then about the design of just this ship for 2 sentences, then all 3 again in the first sentence of the next paragraph. My recollection from the previous article (I don't have the pre-1905 Conway) is that those two sentences equally apply to all 3 ships, so I changed "she" to "they", etc. But if that's not what the sources say, please correct me. - Dank (push to talk) 19:58, 8 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Yeah, changed it around for Indiana after I got comments about it being to much about the ship class, looks better so anyway. Yoenit (talk) 06:50, 9 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You can use http://www.measuringworth.com to convert the $6M figure to today's dollars; I think it would help at FAC. - Dank (push to talk) 20:09, 8 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Thanks for the link. I don't like inflation conversions myself, but I will keep it in mind if somebody asks for them. (or did you just do that?) Yoenit (talk) 06:50, 9 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  - Let's see if anyone asks. - Dank (push to talk) 13:18, 9 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The possessive of "Massachusetts" is just too awkward, with all those sibilant sounds; the apostrophe is more common than 's, but even more common is to reword, which I did. - Dank (push to talk) 20:16, 8 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Always learning more Yoenit (talk) 06:50, 9 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Do you happen to have a link for the 3-inch/50 caliber gun? - Dank (push to talk) 23:18, 8 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- No, there is an article called 3"/50 caliber gun, but it is about the post-WW1 guns [1], while these were the early guns [2]. Yoenit (talk) 06:50, 9 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  - For readers who don't already know the jargon, "3-inch (80 mm)/50 caliber" looks weird, as if it's 80 mm divided by 50; and it also looks wrong to readers who do know the jargon, since they're not going to read "3-inch (80 mm)/50 caliber" anywhere but Wikipedia. We got a change to WP:MOSNUM this summer so that now we omit the unit conversions inside a link, and I prefer the way that looks, so I'm going to red-link it; hopefully someone will create a stub, including the conversion to 80 mm. - Dank (push to talk) 13:18, 9 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
"She saw little action other than summer cruises" ... depends what we mean by "action"; I usually think something more is going on during "action" than a summer cruise, but maybe this is okay. Anyone? - Dank (push to talk) 23:22, 8 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Perhaps "little use other than"? Yoenit (talk) 06:50, 9 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  - Works for me. - Dank (push to talk) 13:18, 9 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support I think, per usual disclaimer. I would appreciate it if someone would check my copyediting. - Dank (push to talk) 23:28, 8 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

As usual, thanks for your relentless copyediting Dank. Don't think I could ever get something to pass A-class without your help. Yoenit (talk) 06:50, 9 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Pfft. There are lots of people here who help, I just get up earlier than they do :) And this is how writing works in the real world (that place where you get paid!) ... very few writers do it all themselves. You're a good researcher and you can say what you want to say, that's really all you need to be successful. - Dank (push to talk) 13:18, 9 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comments:
- there are no dab links, external links all work (no action required);
- images seem to be appropriately licenced to me (no action required);
- Citation # 4 "Bryan (1901)": there appears to be a punctuation issue or a sentence that should be moved to the Footnotes section "Retrieved 14 April 2010. , rounded average calculated from the experimental data in this paper, with BB-1 and BB-2 lumped together";
- ~~Citation # 7 "Friedman, U.S. Battleships, p. 24–25": this should have "pp." rather than "p." because it has multiple page ranges;~~
- ~~Citation # 17 "Graham & Schley, Schley and Santiago, pp. 93-94" should have an endash for the page ranges per WP:DASH;~~
- ~~in the Bibliography, the year ranges in the titles should have endashes;~~
- ~~in the Bibliography, could an OCLC number be added to the Graham and Winfield work?~~ AustralianRupert (talk) 13:37, 11 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  - Done All issues adressed Yoenit (talk) 14:00, 11 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support: all my comments have been addressed. Good work. AustralianRupert (talk) 22:11, 11 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

A couple of awkward tags that I added to the lede that need to be cleaned up.

Is the first one better now? I don't know what's wrong with the second one. - Dank (push to talk) 03:15, 12 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The first one is fixed, but the second one refers to the order of the clauses as noted in the comment itself. Surely the ship was used as a target before it was scuttled?--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 00:28, 14 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Nope, she was scuttled in shallow water before being shot at. I am pretty sure her superstructure remained above water and they aimed at that, but it would OR to say so in the article. I included the part about shallow water in the sentence, hope it is clear now. Yoenit (talk) 09:56, 14 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Titles of the refs need to be capitalized in accordance with Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(capital_letters)#Composition_titles--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 02:38, 12 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- I hope you don't mind, but I've fixed the capitalisation issue, as I should have picked it up in my review. Good spot, Sturm. AustralianRupert (talk) 02:50, 12 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  - Oh, no, I don't mind at all.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 00:28, 14 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support - IMO the article meets all of the criteria. Well done. Anotherclown (talk) 14:39, 14 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.