Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests/Albert Ball

Albert Ball

This nomination predates the introduction in April 2014 of article-specific subpages for nominations and has been created from the edit history of Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests.

This is the archived discussion of the TFAR nomination for the article below. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article/requests). Please do not modify this page.

The result was: scheduled for Wikipedia:Today's featured article/May 7, 2014 by Bencherlite^Talk 14:03, 24 April 2014‎ (UTC)

Albert Ball (1896–1917) was an English fighter pilot during the First World War. At the time of his death he was, with 44 victories, the United Kingdom's leading flying ace - by the end of the war he was in fourth position behind Edward Mannock, James McCudden, and George McElroy. Raised in Nottingham, Ball was commissioned as a second lieutenant in October 1914. He transferred to the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) the following year, and gained his pilot's wings on 26 January 1916. In February 1916, Ball joined No. 13 Squadron RFC in France, flying reconnaissance missions before being posted in May to No. 11 Squadron, a fighter unit. From then until his return to England on leave in October, he accrued many aerial victories, earning two Distinguished Service Orders and the Military Cross. He was the first ace to become a British popular hero. After a period on home establishment, Ball was posted to No. 56 Squadron, which was deployed to the Western Front in April 1917. He crashed to his death in a field in France on 7 May, sparking a wave of national mourning and posthumous recognition, which included the award of the Victoria Cross for his actions during his final tour of duty. (Full article...)

2 points. Anniversary of his death, 97 years since then. Promoted to FA in November 2013. Several co-nominators at FAC included Georgejdorner, Ian Rose, Soundofmusicals and Carcharoth. — Cirt (talk) 20:50, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

• Tks Cirt, blurb looks pretty good to me, though I haven't confirmed the word count. As one of the main editors, I have no objections to this running. Obviously it's appropriate in the centenary year of the beginning of WWI (unless of course people would prefer to wait another three years for the centenary of Ball's death). I've always considered the article to be George's 'baby' -- he suggested to me that we collaborate on it, after which Soundofmusicals and Carcharoth made valuable contributions, and also listed it as a pending TFAR before he unfortunately left the project. It wasn't promoted to FA that long ago but if it looks like attracting support for this date, I'll undertake to step through it and repair any dead links, and so on. BTW, points-wise, I suspect this would be the first TFA for both George and SoM. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 22:37, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
  • No worries. Georgejdorner had it up on the long term requests thingy, so I think it's okay for this date with him. The word count is fine, I made sure of that!!! :) — Cirt (talk) 23:25, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
• I only recently noticed that George isn't editing at the moment, which is a great pity. It would be better if he was around to nominate and comment and help with changes, and a specific anniversary might be better, but in the absence of other WWI-related FAs around it is not entirely unreasonable to nominate this. I would also say that the WWI centenary doesn't really start until August, but given that the BBC (among other media outlets) have been in overdrive with WWI centenary material since late January, that isn't really a valid objection either. For the record, I contributed very little to the article (and from memory, for that reason, I wasn't too sure about the FAC co-nomination status). As Ian says, this was very much mainly worked on by George. Carcharoth (talk) 00:44, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
• Note: FYI, here is the DIFF noting that it was Georgejdorner himself that wanted this article to run on this date. Cheers, — Cirt (talk) 02:40, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
• Support, as nominator. Cheers, — Cirt (talk) 05:32, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
• Support: Anniversary of WWI stuff is perfectly appropriate this year, interesting topic. Montanabw^(talk) 21:29, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
• Comment - I don't think the abbreviations for awards are generally used in TFA blurbs. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 10:20, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
  • I think you're right, re-checking a couple of similar bios previously at TFA; his decorations are rightly mentioned in the blurb anyway. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 23:08, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
    • Thanks, that's saved me an edit! Bencherlite^Talk 09:29, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
• Driveby comment Would it not make more sense to hold it back for the centenary, given how close it is? – iridescent 11:51, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

• @Iridescent: No, it doesn't make sense to dedicate yourself to a lot of work on an article and then wait THREE YEARS to have your work in the spotlight--especially when there's already several hundred FAs that may never see the main page because of the pace of new FA promotions. What if a solar flare knocked out everything electronic next year and Wikipedia and most of civilization is gone before 2017? It would suck if you convinced someone "hey, better to wait three years just because 100 is big and round". Not everything has to be on a big-round-number anniversary and it doesn't make sense just because some people are scared of un-round prime numbers like 97. --ColonelHenry (talk) 12:29, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

• Agree with everything stated in this comment by ColonelHenry (talk · contribs), above. Cheers, — Cirt (talk) 20:57, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

• SUPPORT - excellent article.--ColonelHenry (talk) 12:31, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
• Support. I think now is the time to run it, waiting three years doesn't really make sense to me. Peacemaker67 (send... over) 13:20, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
• Support. Excellent article (and a very distant relative by marriage!) - SchroCat (talk) 10:56, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
• "forth-highest scorer" seemed a bit base. Bellemora (talk) 11:15, 24 April 2014 (UTC)