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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 archived by Gog the Mild via FACBot (talk) 22 August 2023 [1].

Brilliant Pebbles

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Nominator(s): Maury Markowitz (talk) 17:04, 26 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This article has been stable for some time and went through a milhist A-review some time ago. I've been periodically checking for new materials on the topic, but it appears this is now "ancient history" in the world of politics so I suspect it has reached the stage of long-term stability. Someday we'll get real details on the specifications of the last models, but that won't have much of an effect on the article.

BP fits into a strange period in the SDI program. All of the high-tech efforts like Project Excalibur and the SBL (still need to write that one) had failed either completely or had performance that was so poor it would be many decades before they were useful. Teller and Wood's Excalibur became something of a laughingstock, especially after the LANL tests, so they re-appeared with BP in its place. Excalibur was forgotten, as were Teller's comments of only a few years earlier that interceptor missiles were an impossible solution.

Unlike the earlier efforts, BP would have likely worked, for some definition of "work". With nothing else even close, it managed to get ordered into production... right into the ending of the cold war and the almost immediate "cancellation" with Clinton's incoming administration. For all of its oddities, it thus acts as an excellent bookend to the short but storied history of SDI.

Some OK pictures too, although I'd definitely prefer better ones. Maury Markowitz (talk) 17:04, 26 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Support Comments from Hawkeye7

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You forgot to transclude your nomination to Wikipedia:Featured article candidates; I have done that for you. Review to follow. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:15, 27 July 2023 (UTC) Looks pretty good. Some comments:[reply]

  • Lead: "theatre" is spelt correctly; it should be spelt "theater" instead
    The article linked to spells it the former... which struck me as odd at the time. Should I override it with a pipe?
    How odd. I did a search [2] and it was consistently spelt "theater". Hawkeye7 (discuss) 19:30, 28 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Instead of linking to Webster, it would be cleaner to link inline to the Wiktionary [[:wikt:lose one's marbles|]] -> lose one's marbles
  • I had no idea that article existed. Changed. Does this need a separate ref or is the inlink good enough here?
  • " it would cost at least $30 billion a year in 1963 dollars (equivalent to $286,760,869,565 in 2022)." Too precise. round using the advice in {{Inflation}} ie $30 billion (equivalent to ${{Inflation|US-GDP|30|1963|r=-1}} billion in {{Inflation/year|US}}) -> $30 billion (equivalent to $230 billion in 2023)
    Fixed.
  • " studies into X-ray lasers at Livermore" Link Lawrence Livermore Laboratory
    Fixed.
  • What was the Strategic Defense Initiative Office part of? The Air Force or DOD?
    Oh, good question. Turns out to be DOD. Added and reffed.
  • Should you give Abrahamson's rank?
    I generally try to avoid this as it tends to change over time and I'm never sure which to use - the one for the time frame? what if it changed during that time? Or after? Ultimately it seems to be trivia, and the link is right there. But I'm not sure the policy here, and it's easy enough to add if you think it should be there.
  • What is a neutral beam weapon? I followed the link but am none the wiser.
    Hey come on, I still have to get through Space Based Laser first! But I did add a bit of clarifying text, see if that helps.
  • "including a Nobel laureate" Any idea who?
    Indeed, added.
  • "The $40 billion budget estimate was dismissed as "pure fantasy". Over the next year the budget continued to grow, apparently without bound, first to $60 billion, to $75 billion, and then reaching $100 billion by April 1988" can we have an inflation template down here?
    Good? Or should I combine these together inside a single paren at the end?
  • "running around town with {a mockup}." Not sure what the curly brackets mean here.
    They appear in the original text like that, and this is a quote so I just left them as-is. Should I change these to square brackets?
  • "George H. W. Bush took office in 1989," That was 25 years ago. Say that he became president.
    Good point.
  • "President Bill Clinton's new Secretary of Defense" Similarly, I would mention that Clinton became president in 1993.
    Done.

Hawkeye7 (discuss) 06:24, 27 July 2023 (UTC) ??[reply]

Source review

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  • Sources are of good quality
  • Why not move fn 2, 9, 29 and 64 into the Bibliography?
During writing I normally put single-use cites inline to avoid the user having to click twice to get the cite. I believe that may be outdated, but this is old. And I do that because...
  • The books in the bibliography are not in alphabetic order
I find this tedious and error-prone, so I leave this to the end. If we can cover the other bits I'll do that as a last step.
  • fn 3, 34, 66 need an access-date
  • fn 5: date is formatted differently (would be formatted automatically by the template if there was a <nowiki></nowki> template.
  • fn 18: page number?
  • fn 29: isbn?
  • fn 43 is differently formatted. Add a date. Or better still move it to the citations.
  • fn 65: date?
  • Science and Technology of Directed Energy Weapons: link is broken
Fixed. I'll get to the rest shortly.

Hawkeye7 (discuss) 06:24, 27 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Coordinator comment

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Three weeks in and just the single general support. Unless this nomination makes significant further progress towards a consensus to promote over the next three or four days I am afraid that it is liable to be archived.

  • Another six days and no further movement and so with regret I am timing this out. The usual two-week hiatus will apply.


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