Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Peer review/HMAS Melbourne (R21)

HMAS Melbourne (R21)

I've just finished a massive expansion of this article. I want to start the ball rolling towards Featured Article status. So tell me people, what's screaming for a fixing? -- saberwyn 06:12, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

UPDATES by saberwyn:

Tweaks of grammar and phrasing have been made per the points below: I hope I'm getting the right stuff fixed. Any assistance from other editors would be aprreciated, because I wrote almost all of the text that is present and may have a blindspot covering some of the more glaring errors. The section on the Evans collision is being worked through in my userspace (User:Saberwyn/HMAS Melbourne (R21)/Evans collision‎), and Maralia will perform a progress review of this in the near future. Are there any other parts of the article that need looking at?? -- saberwyn 10:05, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

An automated peer review has been run. See below

TomStar81

I didn't take the time to do a thurough read threw (that will come later today), but two things got my attention right quick:

• Decide on a tense. I spotted two instances of past-to-present tense in the same section, it needs to be all present or all past
  • Attempting to fix any parts I find. Can you give an example of one of the more glaring occurances of the problem so I know I'm working on the right thing? -- saberwyn 10:28, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
• Do not start a sentence with a number. Case in point:"82 of Voyager's crew were killed, and two Royal Commissions were held to investigate the events."
  • Do you mean, do not start with a numeral (which will be easy to fix), or do not start with a number (at the mo I can see no other way to restructure that sentance). -- saberwyn 10:28, 28 January 2008 (UTC) DONE

Maralia

I've given it a cursory copyedit, tweaked the reflist to columns, removed a redundant category, alphabetized the books list, and moved the last image up to avoid large whitespace. Overall, this is well written and thorough. A few issues:

• It needs a more comprehensive copyedit. Particular issues include semicolons vs colons, slight overuse of passive verbs, and overcapitalization of officialese like 'government' and 'squadron'.
  • Copyedit is a work in progress, due to my proximity to the text as it was written all assistance to get what I miss is appreciated. -- saberwyn 10:28, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
• Is the construction "HMA Ships x and y" actually used by/for/about RAN ships? The capitalization of 'Ships' in it makes sense, but it looks wrong.
  • I have seen the form used several times before (see this search for "HMA Ships" at the RAN's official website [1]). -- saberwyn 10:28, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
    • Noted. You learn something every day :) Maralia (talk) 16:55, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
• I'm really not satisfied with the Evans collision section. The primary source is a book written by the spouse of the accused. Criticism of the USN's participation in the joint board may be wholly warranted here, but the sources and presentation are questionable. If criticism is rampant, plenty of non-COI sources (and US rebuttals) should be available; if not, then this section suffers from undue weight.

I agree. I knew that this was going to be the weakest section going in to this. The text in question is used as a resource by other Australian naval historians (Tom Frame in Pacific Partners and David Stevens in The Royal Australian Navy) I will attempt to reacquire these books from the library and see how many sources I can change. I will admit that I have not looked too hard for other sources (this was one of the first sections finished, and I was too concerned with filling out the rest of the ships history to ensure that this and the other collision section did not unbalance the article), and the ones I did find focused only on the events of the collision and how the Americans were punished, the latter being more appropriate to the Melbourne-Evans collision article. I'll try to find some time to put it on the slab and tinker with it, but I cannot promise much at this moment in time. -- saberwyn 10:28, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

It's not surprising that 'Australian naval historians' use her book ;) I haven't been able to come up with any US-perspective books about the collision. I did, however, find vast quantities of evidence and documentation from the joint board inquiry, at [2]. Of particular interest are the final two pages ("Responsibility for Collision") of [3], which places the majority of blame on USN personnel. Indeed, 3 USN staff were court-martialed, with at least 2 found guilty of dereliction of duty, while Stevenson was the only RAN staff court-martialed, and he was "acquitted with honor". [4] Also note [5] which gives some USN commentary on the proceedings, including "King [...] is to be complimented for the outstanding investigation conducted under his direction. It is thorough and complete in all respects." Maralia (talk) 16:55, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

From the looks of things, the second weblink is an exerpt from the Board's findings, while the third and fourth weblinks are identical reports sent up the chain of command. The first weblink does not want to work for me. First up, I dislike using primary sources, wouldn't have a clue how to cite them properly if used, and trying to make sense of them smacks a little of original research to me.

In other news, I've started a rewrite of the section in my userspace I've already substituted in references for Frame's Pacific Partners, Bastock's Australia's Ships of War and Gillett's HMAS Melbourne - 25 Years. Unsubstituted material is underlined, and I'll be working to clear this away as I get hold of more texts. -- saberwyn 10:13, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for a good read. The Evans section is the only reason I didn't immediately bump the article to B class, and A class is only that plus a copyedit away, in my opinion. Maralia (talk) 19:58, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Automated

The following suggestions were generated by a semi-automatic javascript program, and might not be applicable for the article in question.

• 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 000 yards, use 000 yards, which when you are editing the page, should look like: 000 yards.^[?]
  • Done - the only remaining occurances are in the wikilink [[Bofors 40 mm gun]] (which would break the wikilink) and in the Evans collision section (and has been fixed in the rewrite)
• Per WP:WIAFA, this article's table of contents (ToC) may be too long – consider shrinking it down by merging short sections or using a proper system of daughter pages as per Wikipedia:Summary style.^[?]
  • Not done - At the moment, the only way I can see to shorten the TOC is to have events from 1969 to 1982 lumped into one awfully massive section. I am not willing to do that.
• This article may need to undergo summary style, where a series of appropriate subpages are used. For example, if the article is United States, then an appropriate subpage would be History of the United States, such that a summary of the subpage exists on the mother article, while the subpage goes into more detail.^[?]
  • Kinda done - Summary-style subarticles (actually just cuts and pastes of the appropriate section standing by and ready for detailed expansion) have been created for the Melbourne-Voyager collision and Melbourne-Evans collision. I do not believe any other section would be appropriate for a subarticle at this time.
• Please make the spelling of English words consistent with either American or British spelling, depending upon the subject of the article. Examples include: armour (B) (American: armor), harbour (B) (American: harbor), metre (B) (American: meter), defense (A) (British: defence), defence (B) (American: defense), organise (B) (American: organize), criticise (B) (American: criticize), isation (B) (American: ization), signalling (B) (American: signaling), travelled (B) (American: traveled), kerb (B) (American: curb), program (A) (British: programme).
  • Done - Pearl Harbor always gets me in these articles. Australian/British is Harbour, but the proper name for the Hawaii base drops the u per American spelling and triggers this comment. Apart from this, the spelling is 100% Australian English
• Please ensure that the article has gone through a thorough copyediting so that it exemplifies some of Wikipedia's best work. See also User:Tony1/How to satisfy Criterion 1a.^[?]

You may wish to browse through User:AndyZ/Suggestions for further ideas. Thanks, -- saberwyn 10:39, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Brad101

• I'm hardly an expert at what is required to upgrade an article but from current appearance, I'm not sure why this article wasn't given B class; it should be there now, imo. If Ship's cat is at B then certainly this one should be. Anyway, I think you have a good shot at FA as it stands. --Brad (talk) 23:10, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
  • It was not given B because the majortiy of the section on the Evans collision was written by Melbourne's captain's wife, and is therefore a conflict of interest. Rewriting of this section is in progress in my userspace, and after the completed rewrite is put into the article, it will likely be promoted to B class.