Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/USS Illinois (BB-65)

USS Illinois (BB-65)

previous FAC (14:00, 15 December 2007)

With Special permission from Deupty FAC Director SandyGeorgia (talk · contribs), this article is being reinstated to the FAC que after the previous nom was closed without any chance for comments on the newly uploaded version of this page. This newer version of the article has addressed some of the previous complaints raised regarding the article's length and content. Comments and suggestions are welcome for this newer version, as are any questions you may have regarding this nom. This is a self nomination, in its current form about 80% of the articles content was written by me. TomStar81 (Talk) 21:54, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

• Nominate and support TomStar81 (Talk) 21:54, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose

First let me start off by saying excellent additions!!!This is more in line with an FA-quality article. It still isn't there, but you've clearly done your homework...speaking of doing your homework, I assume your exams are over? Enough chit-chat, let's get to the meat of the article (I'm not going to hit everything, but I will try to give at least one example of each...realize that you need to check the entire article for these problems).

1. Excessive wordiness/passive voice/improper number conversions (mind you these are the opening sentences in the body): "The passage of the Second Vison Act in 1939 had cleared the way for construction of the four South Dakota-class fast battleships and the first two Iowa class battleships (those with the hull numbers BB-61 and BB-62).[1] The latter four battleships of the class, those designated with the (hull numbers BB-63, BB-64, BB-65, and BB-66) were not cleared for construction until 1940,.[1] and at the time the two battleships with h Hull numbers BB-65 and BB-66 were intended to be originally slated as the first ships of the Montana-class, a larger, slower, upgunned class of battleship with an improved armor belt intended to protect her from her own compliment of twelve 16"/50 caliber 16-inch (40cm)/50 caliber Mark 7 guns." How did the Second Vison Act "clear" anything? What was the Second Vison Act? Was something else stopping it? These kinds of problems can and should be avoided.
2. "...a leviathan the likes of which the United States had never before constructed...." serious use of peacock terminology/poor encyclopedic terms
3. Switching between terms: BB-65, battleship #65, hull number 65, etc. Stick to one term throughout for clarity. Don't abbreviate using "#"
4. Too many subsections in the Armament section. It appears choppy.
5. References need some work. You need to include all pertinent information: author, publisher, title, date of publication, date of access (for websites only, not books), page numbers, etc. These all need to be within Wikipedia standards (proper italics, wikified dates for ALL citations, etc).
6. 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.^[?]
7. 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.
8. Per Wikipedia:Manual of Style (headings), avoid using special characters (ex: &+{}[]) in headings.
9. Get rid of weasel words in this article IAW WP:AWT. "arguably" should specify exactly who supports, considers, believes, etc., such a view.

In short, it isn't ready yet. I have no intention of nitpicking and showing every possible problem. Please read User:BQZip01/FA Tips for more information.

I hope that helps in fixing up the article! — BQZip01 — ^talk 17:45, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose This piece of stillborn hardware is of questionable notability anyway and should be nom for Afd/Merge anyway. A lot of the article is taken up with what it might have been. It is also possibly inaccurate. It keeps describing the item as a " hulk". It is not clear that it was ever afloat. The object is persistently characterized as "she" and "her". I know that it is common for vessels to be characterized as such but should this be the case in Wp generally and in particular for this abortive project that was never the subject of a naming ceremony/launch? Albatross2147 (talk) 23:15, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Her sister is an Featured Article, and all five of the never laid down Montana class battleships have their own articles. If Danfs has an entry for the ship then it meets minimum standards for being here on Wikipedia. A lot of the article is based on the information leading up to creation and the events surrounding her early construction work; this is common. If you see inaccuracies, add {{cn}} tags to the stuff that needs cited and I will see to it that the material gets cited. The article does make references to the ship being a hulk, I must admit that I am not aware of any distinction made between hulk and floating; if this is incorrect for the article and its context, it will be taken out forthwith. The other FA-class articles all use She over it, even the incompletd Kentucky; I see no reason why this one should be any different. TomStar81 (Talk) 23:20, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
    • The article (like the above) is full of egregious spelling errors which should be eliminated. Have you tried using Firefox with spellcheck turned on? Albatross2147 (talk) 00:15, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
      • What on earth does ...a larger, slower, upgunned class of battleship with an improved armor belt intended to protect her from her own compliment of twelve 16"/50 caliber Mark 7 guns. mean" I know the US military are notorious for own goals but this seems to be taking the precautionary principle too far. Albatross2147 (talk) 00:26, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
    • Battleships in any nations fleet were usually armored to withstand guns of their own size. Of the ships using 16-inch guns during WWII (the North Carolina, South Dakota, Iowa, and Montana classes) the North Carolinas and South Dakotas were only armoured to withstand the 16"/45 calibur guns, while the Iowa class was designed only to resist the original 2,240 lb shells originally developed for the 16"/50 and thus were inedequetly armored against the "super heavy" 2,700 lb shells they actually used during the war (it is for this reason that some people consider the Iowa class to be battlecruisers and not battleships). Montana would have been the first U.S. battleship to feature an improved armor belt intended to protect Montana and her sisters from her their own compliment of twelve 16"/50 caliber Mark 7 guns (and by extension, the 2,700 lb ammunition used in those guns). TomStar81 (Talk) 07:47, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
• Objection this article so bad not even the slinkyies hoes in hoe town get close to it. - bad organization - doesn't look comprehensive - and really does not look FA quality - (this comment is actionable - action being would be "improving article to FA quality")--Keerllston 23:54, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Sustained -- you make your point as good as the others, but a few suggestion would go a long way toward helping me bring this article up to FA status. I already know about the spelling and the grammar problems, and those are beyond my ability fix becuase my spelling sucks. Unless I log on through the university systems on their computers I have no accsess to mozilla or the spellchecker within it. I think the article is comprehensive; I have stated before that this is part of series on the topic and (ideally) should be read along with Iowa class battleship and Armament of the Iowa class battleship. TomStar81 (Talk) 07:47, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Tom, I am very concerned about this. Are you saying you want us to give this article featured status even though you know it has spelling errors? Surely you can't be serious. What school do you attend where a simple dictionary is not available? Go through and check each word if you need to/ Please don't come to an FAC and waste time the time of fellow editors for simple things like spelling. That is not what an FAC is intended to be. As a further suggestion, cut & paste into Microsoft Word and hit "F7"; it'll do a grammar and spelling check. It isn't the best, but it will help. — BQZip01 — ^talk 08:06, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

I have done that before, and even then I do not get all of the spelling and grammar errors. What I am saying is that the spelling is beyond my ability to correct, not that I think spelling can be overlooked on an FAC because it can't. If push comes to shove I will petition the leauge of copyeditors to review the article and correct the spelling. On a similar note I am glad to see you came back. TomStar81 (Talk) 09:23, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose some questions, firstly the prose is inconsistent in tense making it difficult to follow whether the ship was built or not, along with swapping between names USS Montana and USS Illinois, according to linked articles Montana was designated BB-67. Part of this confusion in prose stems from having a separate section on Armament when the vessel wasnt completed. Armament should covered in the various designs, without the detailed sections about the design bofor & oerlikons guns Gnangarra 10:04, 16 December 2007 (UTC)Strike see below Gnangarra 06:08, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

• • As I write this I am (albeit slowly) working through the article to try and get it harmonized, as you noted the tense is off in places and the article switches from the class and conversion templates to the old style one cite per unit method, both of witch need to be addressed. On the Montana note you left: our current version does indeed note that Montana was assigned the hull number BB-67, but I have been working on bringing the Montana class article up to featured status and the associated research for that yielded this new evidence. At the moment our Montana class article and the as yet unfinished version sitting in my sandbox are radically different, I do not have all the needed parts to place the new version out to be seen by all. To be honest it had not occurred to me that the current article namespace version of the Montana class battleships did not address these issues. I am none to keen on outright removing the material related to the battleship when designated USS Montana since that would leave the article uncomprehensive. On the issue of the armament: I have the section arrayed as they are now because I thought that this method would be simplier to understand, but I would be willing to remove the entire section and its subsections and consolidate the information into a paragraph or two under the sections "USS Montana" and "USS Illinois". Would that be better? TomStar81 (Talk) 11:16, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
    • User:Dwarf Kirlston comments also indicate that the article layout is disorganized so maybe looking at chronologically would assist that. Discuss Montana class design including armament, then discuss Iowa class the armament particulars of that, this is a significant factor in the choice of the BB-65 and BB-66 order and moving of USS Montana from BB-65 to BB-67. With Montana while its was designated as BB-65 the sources(that I could read) indicated that the order for the ship was dropped in priority for 2 extra Iowa class after the events at Midway. IMHO (without access to source 3,4,5 which appear to also cover this information) the focus on USS Illinois being called USS Montana is inconsistent with sources as it was only BB-65 designation that they have in common. Source 3 the link has died so you'll need to re-establish. Gnangarra 13:14, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
• OpposeIt seemed quite well written and researched, but I just don't think it is notable enough to make the grade. There are lots of ships that did get built and have a real history, why on earth put so much work into this white elephant? Excalibur (talk) 00:25, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Its part of a plan to create a featured list for the Iowa class of battleships, to do that requires that the articles be FA-class. Of the six battleships in the Iowa class Illinois is by far the hardest to write for because the battleship was never consider for any sort of post life rebuild. I do believe that given the chance I can make this work, otherwise I wouldn't have bothered nominating it. Notability requirements for an incomplete ship should not be brought up here; the article has been here for years and no one has every complained about its notability at SHIPS, MILHIST, or any other project; nor for that matter has anyone every filed a notability based afd for the article. TomStar81 (Talk) 01:49, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
    • Not to nitpick, but you mean Featured Topic instead of featured list. And, the requirements for such only require a majority of the articles in the topic to be featured, but all FA-class is a good goal for such an endeavor. -MBK₀₀₄ 02:26, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
      • A featured topic does not need all the articles to be FA. It's OK if you have a few GAs in the topic. --Kaypoh (talk) 09:49, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
  • ...Yeah, what'd I say? TomStar81 (Talk) 02:36, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
    • Featured list and all the articles had to be FA-class. Need some coffee? -MBK₀₀₄ 02:39, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
    • Sleep actually, working 22 hours days to pass school is extremely taxing on the brain and other associated mental facilities. Aside from the lack of sleep I am happy to be back. BTW, I am working on tweaking the article to address some of these concerns, so everyone keep your eyes open. TomStar81 (Talk) 04:30, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
• A new version has been put up in an effort to address some of the FAC complaints received here. Comments on this new version are welcome, as are any other comments or questions you may have. TomStar81 (Talk) 06:28, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
• Support - Although I thought the older versions were adequate, I must say that you've done wonders for the article. As always, I've also corrected your "horrible" spelling above. :) -MBK₀₀₄ 18:36, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
  • And as always, I am thankful for it :) TomStar81 (Talk) 20:31, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
• Support after the more recent rewrite, I've also done some copy editting when reviewing. Gnangarra 06:08, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose per above. An article with so many English problems should not be an FA. My English is not very good but I can see problems in the lead. For example, change "this gained an eight" to "this gained her an eight" and "where as" is used wrongly. Also, the reference after "at the time of cancellation" should be after a comma or full stop. What happened to the new version with more info? --Kaypoh (talk) 09:49, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
  • The information is still there; the armament sections were not well recieved with the community and this nessicitated a rewrite of the article to deal with the objections. As for the sp&g objections, I will try to address the issues to the best of my limited spelling ability. BTW, thank you for coming back; I apreciate your comments on this FAC. TomStar81 (Talk) 10:04, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

• Objection continued despite changes - calling a section Fate both seems that it will descibe in detain the fate of more than just a bell seems to imply a fatalistic universe -bad tone.--Keerllston 14:36, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Changed that section title to Scrapping also removed a duplicated sentence in that section. Gnangarra —Preceding comment was added at 14:56, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

• I know it's usual to have a section called background but I object - a possible solution is the splitting up of that section into more useful sections -section called "context"/"similar battleships" and a section called "construction" instead - maybe one called planning as well - currently very bad organization.--Keerllston 21:13, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
• Perhaps the following scheme then:
  • Design
  • Development
  • Scrapping
  • Notes
  • References
  • External Links
• Do you think that would help the orginization any? TomStar81 (Talk) 23:13, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

• Any scheme would be better than just "Background" and "Scrapping" as content headings - (background to what? -the scrapping???). -
  Your scheme sounds good - If I might propose - 1st heading:Background/Context/*in terms of pre-WWII/in terms of novelty of Battleship design/in terms of costs of war that never mattered in actual battle -2nd: US Government/Command/Ordering -3rd:Design -Construction and Funding -4th:Scrapping
  --Keerllston 10:58, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

• My 2c based on what I've read in the sources the sections 1 thru 3 are very intertwined, though I'd think 1/Background & Design - which covers the issues of treaty restrictions, Panamax design compromises and the first use of the formula in battleship designs. 2/Construction - This covers the ordering/reordering(inc priority to Aircraft carriers, anti aircraft platforms after Midway/Coral Sea), building costs wleding vs rivet/weld 3/Scrapping - as is. This only my thoughts as to Dwarfs suggestion, it doesnt change my support for the articles promotion. Gnangarra 11:13, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

• Comment the organization has substancially improved, as a result I Strike-through my objection. - I believe comprehensibility could also be improved (per proposal above)- I will probably re-review later on.--Keerllston 15:43, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
• Comment—I tried to address multiple issues on this page, but it may need more tweaking by an experienced editor. I'm a little dubious about the Voodoo World reference, as it gives no sources for the data and it doesn't look like a professional site. Is there a cross-reference that could be used?—RJH (talk) 17:28, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
  • I checked the voodoo site information very carefully before using it here, the information is reliable (by which I mean that it agrees with other books/web sites). I will double cite that for you if it will make you feel better. Thanks you for your copy-editting help as well, I apreciate it very much. TomStar81 (Talk) 18:35, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
    • I'm am still looking for your additional citations, but my real life commitments are starting to catch up with me, so there may be a long pause between requests and actions. TomStar81 (Talk) 02:21, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Found your additional citations, they were from a book I own. The part about her being the 5th of the six authorized battleships could prabably be cited several times over, the Naval Vessel Register and the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships would support this claim as well via stated dates. I beleive the spring book from the Naval board could also be used to cite the information if you wish. TomStar81 (Talk) 01:23, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
• Comment I got a new PC for christmas, so my contributions here may decrease somewhat shile I get everything back up to speed. TomStar81 (Talk) 09:31, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
• Comment I got my PC more or less set up, so barring any unforseen incidents I should be free to surf the net at will. TomStar81 (Talk) 01:04, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
• Comment With the exception of a few missing codecs needed for playing certain video files (namely, those I pirate from my pc games) I am now 100% done with setting up and installing the computer. There is one small matter though that should be wieghed with this: my previously saved websites (including a butload of sites from which I draw information for articles here) have yet to be located and readded to my favorites folder, therefore requests for information regarding certain aspects of this article (or any other article I have actively contributed to since 2004) will likely be met with a slow response. PS: Happy New Year, all! TomStar81 (Talk) 10:37, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose. It's perfectly possible to have an FA on a battleship which was never built. The design work can be fascinating and the response of other nations to even an unbuilt ship can be important. However, not this one: there is not enough to say about this ship which cannot be said about Iowa class battleship or Montana class battleship. It's an article worth having but because of the inevitable limitations in scope it will never be an example of Wikipedia's best work and so shouldn't be an FA. The Land (talk) 16:35, 3 January 2008 (UTC)