Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/If Day/archive1

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 by Karanacs 03:10, 13 October 2011 [1].

If Day

Featured article candidates/If Day/archive1

Nominator(s): Nikkimaria (talk) 02:45, 1 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured article because it is to my knowledge the most comprehensive account of this event available online, has passed GAN and MilHist ACR, has been peer-reviewed, and in my opinion meets the FA criteria.

One cold February morning in 1942, Nazi troops invaded the Canadian city of Winnipeg. They interned several prominent politicians, including the mayor and the provincial premier, in an old fur-trading fort. They then declared Nazi rule, took over the schools and the media, closed the churches, and burned books from the public library. Fortunately, the only blood shed was that of a woman who cut her thumb while attempting to make toast during a blackout. Oh, and did I mention they rented their uniforms from Hollywood and painted scars on their faces? Nikkimaria (talk) 02:45, 1 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Support on prose per standard disclaimer, having reviewed the changes made since my last edit at the A-class review. These are my edits. - Dank (push to talk) 03:26, 1 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Copyscape review - No issues were revealed by Copyscape searches. The article by Michael Newman is available online here [2]. Would it be a good idea to include a link to it? Graham Colm (talk) 08:30, 1 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Done. Thanks Graham and Dank for reviewing! Nikkimaria (talk) 20:50, 1 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comments for now. There are a few wrinkles in the prose that possibly could be improved.

Here, "The event was intended to raise money for the war effort: over C$3 million was raised in Winnipeg on that day", there is what Fowler calls a jingle. And would "used" be better than "intended"?

Here, would subject be better than feature, "It was later the feature of a 2006 documentary, and was included in Guy Maddin's My Winnipeg." And, the readers are not not told what My Winnipeg is. At first I guessed it was a book. If readers have to click on links, there is a danger that they might not come back. Changing "feature" to "subject" also rescues "included", which otherwise looks a little lost.
I saw at least one "in order to".
- "Residents of neighbouring northern Minnesota were also warned in order to prevent a rush to emergency shelters,": See how removing "in order" changes the meaning of the sentence? - Dank (push to talk) 11:35, 2 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  - No, I don't. Not with the verb to warn. If it were the verb to tell, perhaps it would. Graham Colm (talk) 12:01, 2 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    - Okay, ask around about this, please. - Dank (push to talk) 12:41, 2 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    - I would read "residents were warned to prevent a rush" to mean insisting that residents prevent a rush by some third group, whereas IMO "warned in order to" correctly conveys that the warning was intended to prevent a rush by the residents. Nikkimaria (talk) 19:50, 2 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      - Please see my comment below about ambiguity. The sentence could be changed; "To prevent a rush to emergency shelters, residents of neighbouring northern Minnesota were also warned." But, lets not worry too much about this. Graham Colm (talk) 20:06, 2 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
~~Here, "radio stations dramatizing the event could be received in that area", and I know this sounds a little pedantic but "stations" are not received – "broadcasts" are.~~

I think at least one (early) use of "Nazi" as in "The Nazi troops were volunteers from the Young Men's Board of Trade" should be in inverted commas. They can then probably be dispensed with throughout the rest of the article, and indeed might become annoying.

~~Here, "a television documentary of the events was created" - I would have said "made".~~

The article might be improved by one more copyedit. Graham Colm (talk) 09:21, 2 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

All suggestions taken except "in order to", as per Dank that would change the meaning of the sentence. I've also made a few other minor changes. Nikkimaria (talk) 12:09, 2 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, very helpful, Graham. Nikki's edits look good, and note that she made additional good changes throughout, per your request, Graham. The one thing she didn't add were the inverted commas, which we generally avoid per WP:MOS#Quotation marks. You'll hear the argument made both ways on whether to add double quotes around one "Nazi", as you suggested. (Personally, I'm a fan, but since I don't see how "Nazi" without quote marks could be misinterpreted in that sentence, some say they'd be redundant.) - Dank (push to talk) 12:52, 2 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You are very welcome. With regard to "in order to", I'm not going to cause a fuss. Tony has this to say "in order to and in order for —> just to and for (very occasionally, the "in order" is required to avoid ambiguity, and of course the negative requires all words: "in order not to", and "so as not to")" [3]. Perhaps this is an accepted occasional usage. I look forward to adding my support once all the usual checks have been cleared. Graham Colm (talk) 13:02, 2 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Source review – Spotchecks done, but what makes this a reliable source? Graham Colm (talk) 19:49, 2 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The website is not a reliable source in and of itself, but it's republishing material from a reliable source which I was unable to access directly. Nikkimaria (talk) 20:11, 2 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This website looks like the ones that mar Wikipedia's reputation with regard to reliable sources. Have you had any luck with Google Books? [4]. Graham Colm (talk) 20:30, 2 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I saw that, but see this conversation - apparently it's just a bibliography. If necessary, I can just remove the source, as it's not particularly vital. Nikkimaria (talk) 23:01, 2 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That's a useful conversation and it's good that there is a link to it in this nomination. I don't think the source is needed on the first occurrence and on the second it supports a sentence that has been copied almost directly from it. If a better source can be used to support the scale of the fund-raiser, I suggest deleting this one. The sentence in question might need to be re-cast in any case. Graham Colm (talk) 05:59, 3 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, I've reworded a couple of sentences to ditch the source. Nikkimaria (talk) 12:02, 3 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Support - Graham Colm (talk) 20:04, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Support -- Supported at MilHist ACR and, having reviewed changes since then, I see no reason not to support for FA. Well done! cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 04:06, 3 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Support - I meant to review this article for A-class, but never got around to posting my comments :( Oh well, have had a chance to re-read it now, and liked it just as well this time around. One comment below, but it doesn't effect my support:

Effects, "23 people enlisted on If Day, compared to an average of 36 per day for the first half of February." Are these numbers for all of Canada? Manitoba? Winnipeg?

Overall, a wonderful little article about an event that I'd never heard of...I wonder what would happen if officials tried that today with a simulated invasion by terrorists or something... Very nice work, Dana boomer (talk) 16:43, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Winnipeg office; amended. Thanks for the review! I suspect that a simulated invasion today would catch no one by surprise assuming it was announced beforehand - too much media saturation. If it wasn't announced beforehand, there'd be a media firestorm. (I vaguely recall having heard of a simulated terrorist attack to test response units somewhere, but IIRC this did not involved civilians and was not on the same scale as this event). Nikkimaria (talk) 20:00, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Once in a while (annually?) in the state where I live they do a big state-wide drill of a major event (terrorist attack, bridge collapse, forest fire hitting a heavily populated area, etc) that is a test of the response units and inter-department communication between state and local units and various departments (fire/rescue/police/etc) - generally no civilians involved unless they're acting as dummy victims/criminals/whathaveyou. A pretty cool thing, but definitely not on the scale of this (fake money! burning books! rounding up local government!). Dana boomer (talk) 21:51, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Support

Image Review all checkout OK.
No other issues that haven't already been dealt with.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 18:14, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the check, and the support! Nikkimaria (talk) 20:00, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.