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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 not promoted 16:33, 24 May 2008.

Civil Air Patrol

[edit]
previous FAC
FFA, has been on main page

Self-nomination. This was a previous featured article, yet it was removed in a Featured Article Review. I have been working very hard on the article to bring it back to the quality of a featured article. —  scetoaux (T|C) 01:11, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

  • Current ref 29 "Memorandum of understanding among headquarters..." is lacking a publisher
  • What makes http://www.gippsaero.com/article.asp-articleID=452.htm a reliable source for the fact that the CAP operates the world's largest fleet of single-engine aircraft?
  • I'm a bit concerned that large chunks of the article are sourced to CAP or Air Force sources.
Other sources look good. Links checked out fine. Ealdgyth - Talk 02:45, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I understand your first two concerns, and will adress them when I am on a proper interface (it would be extremely difficult to make changes while on an iPod Touch). However, to perhaps explain the high volume of internal references: much of the content in the article deals with regulatory information, the only true source of which are the regulations themselves. That accounts for about half of the internal links. The others hold information that was difficult or impossible to find in reliable third-party references, but are of the nature that the first party references are not skewed by self-promotion interests. Everything that wasn't verifiable has been removed. I did feel, however, that much of this information adds to the article significantly, and per IAR I believe that justifies use of first party references in the quantity presented in the article. —  scetoaux (T|C) 04:05, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments - Looking at this at a glance, I have noticed some layout/organization issues and short paragraphs. I also see plenty of lists which should be converted to prose. None of the sections seem to be 'even', for example the History section is one paragraph, whereas the others are much much longer. 'Ground Vehicles' sub-section is two sentences long, but the other sub-sections under 'Equipment' are a couple paragraphs each. — Wackymacs (talk ~ edits) 12:49, 18 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose as per Tony (below). It looks better now, but a thorough copyedit is needed instead of partial one. — Wackymacs (talk ~ edits) 17:25, 24 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose for now - Very promising but the copy fails 1(a). It needs a vigorous prune by an uninvolved editor: you've gotten a little too close to the text and it pulling into shape by someone with critical distance. Here are some examples taken from the lead:

  • Civil Air Patrol's membership consists of cadets ranging from 12 to 21 years of age, and senior members 18 years of age and up. "The Civil Air Patrol has cadet members, aged 12 to 21, and senior members, from 18 years of age"?
  • The Civil Air Patrol is organized along a military styled hierarchy. Does this mean the CAP "has a military-type hierarchy"?
  • National Headquarters has command over the entire organization, while further subdivisions allow for more localized execution of command. Convoluted?
  • Below National Headquarters, there are eight geographic regions that encompass a total of 52 wings (one for each state, in addition to the Washington, D.C. area and the territory of Puerto Rico). "It is organized as 52 wings – one for each state, and one for Washington DC, and Puerto Rico – grouped into eight regions"?
  • Under the command of each of the wings, squadrons provide the most localized and basic functional unit of CAP. "Each wing is made up of squadrons, the basic operational unit"?
--ROGER DAVIES talk 16:37, May 18, 2008 (UTC)
Well, having that vigorous prune is not something I can do myself, since as you said it has to be done by an uninvolved editor. So this FAC is going to fail, in essence, because there's no way for me to get an uninvolved editor to put this amount of work in without canvassing, and evidently nobody that contributes to FAC is willing to help with the articles that they oppose. —  scetoaux (T|C) 19:18, 18 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Not really true; there are plenty of copy-editors roaming around Wikipedia. All you have to do is go to their Talk page and ask kindly for some help. There are copy-editors listed on the following pages: Wikipedia:WikiProject League of Copyeditors/Members and Wikipedia:Peer review/volunteers. — Wackymacs (talk ~ edits) 19:51, 18 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
That's not correct, I frequently copy-edit articles I oppose. However, it's very time-consuming (a recent one was two complete days work). My hands are full at the moment (I'm doing major copy-edits on two recent failed-FACs, time-estimate at least 30 hours each) and have numerous other commitments, not least of which is trying to pitch in regularly at FAC and to provide an in-depth review of every Milhist A-Class candidate article. I have a real life too. Therefore, I prioritize.
The advice about an uninvolved editor was intended to spare pain rather than place an insurmountable barrier in your path to FA. It's much easier and quicker for someone new to the article to see its shortcomings. You can try to copyedit it yourself but in practice this turns out to be a copy-edit by proxy - ie you change the example bits, reviewers find more, and so it goes on - and it's not only disheartening for you but very time-consuming for us.
The easiest way to get your article copy-edit is to look at the edit history of related featured articles and leave a note on the user pages of editors who have copy-edited them. In my experience, most editors contacted this way are glad to help.
--ROGER DAVIES talk 06:14, 19 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I understand. Just a simple frustration is all. —  scetoaux (T|C) 00:50, 20 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose, I concur with Roger Davies that the text is quite rough. At the minimum, a rigorous copyedit is required from an uninvolved editor to smooth out such turns of phrase as "CAP also performs non-auxiliary missions for various governmental and private agencies, such as local law enforcement and the American Red Cross." and "Many of these uniforms are based upon the Air Force Battle Dress Uniform (BDU) and Service Dress Uniform, while other uniforms exist solely for the Civil Air Patrol." Both examples are just from the lead. Additionally, the penchant for bold paragraph introductions has got to go. If the prose smoothly and logically describes the CAP, those introductions should not be necessary. --Laser brain (talk) 15:02, 19 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    I acknowledge your concerns. I'm trying to get a copyeditor now. —  scetoaux (T|C) 19:26, 19 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    OK, right now the copyediting is being done by User:Happy-melon. He's basically going through the article and making the necessary changes. He's also helped with some citation concerns, which is so far going as a sort of back-forth process: he flags the article with [citation needed] for me to come in and fix. —  scetoaux (T|C) 21:16, 19 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Great! Good luck! Ealdgyth - Talk 21:17, 19 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
As requested by Ealdgyth, I've been over the article and given it a rough copyedit. It's certainly far from perfect, but I hope it's an improvement.
Some comments I would make:
  • The "History" section, although correctly in summary style, is a little short and in particular cuts of abruptly in 1945. It would be nice to see perhaps one or two more paragraphs, covering more recent activity.
  • The first "Cadet program" heading, with a "see also" link to further down the page, is awkward. Either the entire Cadet Program should be spun out into a separate article (which I think there is enough material to be a serious possibility), in which case an appropriate summary here is needed, or there needs to be some clever re-organisation to avoid this two-line 'teaser' for the over-long section below.
  • The "Ground vehicles" section is laughably short. Either it should be expanded, or the "Equipment" section should not be subdivided
  • The "Organisation" section is over-long and contains some very tangential information. It should be shortened; and the inclusion of things like the National Commander succession crisis re-evaluated.
  • A general check-through for little things (like consistency in the capitalisation of "Senior Member", and the use of "The Civil Air Patrol" is necessary. Acronyms are also often over-used: the acronym or abbreviation should only be stated after the first instance of a term if the acronym is subsequently used alone in the text.
In general, this looks like a promising article, but I wouldn't call its organisation or presentation "brilliant" at the current time. Happy‑melon 22:11, 21 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose—1a.

  • Paragraphing and in some places the sectioning is a little choppy. Grade/insignia box jammed up against main text on my browser.
  • After a reasonable opening, the prose has problems. I picked up numerous bad patches, such as:
  • "Progression in the training program is required for promotion of those senior members who were not promoted based on a prior military rank, or those with certain professional appointments (such as legal or medical)."—eeuuuw. "the" is missing; ungainly repetition. Winding.
  • "skills they have from their private lives"—um ... "skills they have acquired in their private lives"?
  • "Civil Air Patrol's cadet program is a traditional military-style cadet program."—Audit the whole thing for such repetitions. Tedious to read.

Please don't just correct these points; the whole text needs the attention of someone new to it. TONY (talk) 14:28, 24 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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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