USS Missouri (BB-63)
USS Missouri (BB-63) ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
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- Notified: TomStar81, Parsecboy, Dawkeye, Bellhalla, Bschorr, WP MILHIST, WP Hawaii, WP NRHP, WP Missouri, WP Museums, WP Ships, WP Japan, WP Korea, WP USA, discussion of concerns in 2020
This 2005 promotion is now the second-oldest entry at WP:URFA/2020A. As noted in 2020 by Parsecboy, this article is over-reliant on DANFS at the expense of scholarly sources such as Stillwell. The article also directly copies DANFS for sizable swaths, which was quite acceptable at the time but is not really at FA today, especially when there's other literature to use. At a minimum, Stillwell should be used more, and Butler would be good for the grounding material. I suspect that Reilly would also be useful, although I am not familiar with that work. Much of the WWII section was improved back in 2020, but there hasn't been continued progress since. This is a pretty core article for MILHIST and especially for Operation Majestic Titan, hopefully it can be saved. Hog Farm Talk 01:48, 9 April 2022 (UTC)
Comments
- As Hogfarm noted, the article relies on DANFS too much; it's a government source, which should be used with some caution. Some use is fine depending on the context, and in the cases of very obscure ships, it's unavoidable, but Missouri is among the most famous, well-documented ships so finding alternatives is not a problem.
- There are a number of sources that could be consulted to address the DANFS issue, in addition to Stillwell. Garzke & Dulin would be a good first choice to supplement Stillwell. I'm not familiar with Reilly's book, but it should also be useful; Caresse's The Battleships of the Iowa Class: A Design and Operational History might also help (though I'm given to understand that it's pretty photo heavy).
- There is a fair bit of extraneous info that could be culled. For example, in the Korea section the two paragraphs that begin and end at "MacArthur's amphibious landings at Incheon...were evacuated by way of the sea on 24 December 1950." are almost completely off-topic that could be summarized in a sentence or two to provide the context needed.
- There are plenty of prose issues that need to be ironed out. Parsecboy (talk) 13:48, 9 April 2022 (UTC)
- The box is very long, and I don't think it does its purpose of summarizing the article well; it more or less fills the same purpose as the lead section (with the exception of technical information that is better suited to tabular display), and I think the article's authors have lost sight of that. It's filled with extraneous info that add little for the reader's understanding of the topic. I could happily see the badge, motto, and nickname fields go; the locator map for Pearl Harbor probably isn't of much use; I'm 50/50 on whether Margaret Truman should be listed in the sponsor field (in that yes, she's notable, but is she all that significant in the narrative of this ship that she should be mentioned in the box? The ordered field could probably go as well, in the interest of trimming things down. And the architect field in the NHRP section is redundant.
- Conversely, the lead is far too short and doesn't do a good job of summarizing the article. Why do we care that this ship was the third vessel named after the state? And why is that included when ship's WWII and Korea activities are described in a single sentence? No mention of goodwill cruises in the 1940s, or the grounding in 1950, or any of the ship's activities in the 80s and 90s apart from Desert Storm (which is also pretty minimal). For an article that is 75kb long, I'd expect more than 7(!) sentences in the lead.
- I'd wonder whether anything of note has happened since 2010, the latest info we have on the ship here. I know visitation was shut down in 2020, returned to limited operation late in the year, and then returned to full operation in mid-2021 - presumably that should be included. Apparently various educational activities and such are held aboard the ship - presumably that should be mentioned too. Parsecboy (talk) 17:02, 11 April 2022 (UTC)
- Beyond what Hog Farm and Parsecboy have already mentioned, the images seem a little repetitive. There are two photographs of the exact same perspective from different decades. That would be great in a coffee table book, but I'm not sure how that is encyclopedic as there is no mention of how the second one differs from the first one other than time and painted numbers. The pop culture section should discuss the vessel's use in film (why is it chosen over other American museum battleships) and not just have a listing of what movies the vessel appeared in. Was there any fallout from the Cher music video beyond the navy not being happy? Llammakey (talk) 14:52, 9 April 2022 (UTC)
- According to Stillwell, the Cher incident created a minor controversy in the press (and generated complaints from veterans) but nothing significant as far as official reactions; as far as what he says, it's not clear to me that the Navy was particularly unhappy, since it amounted to free publicity. Parsecboy (talk) 22:29, 10 April 2022 (UTC)
- Ah, so even more reason to support your positions earlier, Stillwell needs more use. Llammakey (talk) 11:18, 11 April 2022 (UTC)
- For the curious (I was, obviously) the FA criteria added the bit about being representative of published works in Aug 2006, about a year after this article's FAC. Parsecboy (talk) 17:02, 11 April 2022 (UTC)
- Ah, so even more reason to support your positions earlier, Stillwell needs more use. Llammakey (talk) 11:18, 11 April 2022 (UTC)
- According to Stillwell, the Cher incident created a minor controversy in the press (and generated complaints from veterans) but nothing significant as far as official reactions; as far as what he says, it's not clear to me that the Navy was particularly unhappy, since it amounted to free publicity. Parsecboy (talk) 22:29, 10 April 2022 (UTC)
- I’m late to this party, sorry, I’m just off work and after 8 long nights I am wiped out, but I note that I stand by what I stated earlier: the article itself is still sound. The external links are good and the sourcing is adequate, although the reliance on danfs and prose puffery have chewed into the articles quality. Still, though, this is a good 80% or so still featured article, so migrating sources and trimming prose shouldn’t be too hard here.
- As noted at the the article talk page, I'm not interested in becoming an advocate for FA status, but am interested in helping to improve the article, including working in some areas noted here. I did order the Stilwell and Butler books. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 17:00, 13 April 2022 (UTC)
- I received the Stilwell book and started reading it. North8000 (talk) 15:49, 18 April 2022 (UTC)
- I believe that I resolved the issue of insufficient coverage of Korean war service in the lead. North8000 (talk) 18:00, 18 April 2022 (UTC)
- I don't think "USS Missouri Memorial Association Inc" requires its own subsection, and listing the salary ranges of its chief executives puts the article off focus (we don't put captain's pay grades in ship articles, you know). -Indy beetle (talk) 07:22, 21 April 2022 (UTC)
- Good points, I fixed it. North8000 (talk) 11:55, 21 April 2022 (UTC)
- Question for the FA regulars. I bought and am reading the Stilwell and Butler books. Stilwell is a very thorough and extensive book on the Missouri, and Butler is on the grounding. Some of the comments above were basically that heavy use of or reliance on DANFS is a minus with respect to the "it is a thorough and representative survey of the relevant literature" FA criteria. I'd be happy to add cites to some pages in those books to some items that are cited only to DANFS. My question is: with respect to that FA criteria and it's application here, would it be better to remove the DANFS cites on those or just leave them double cited? North8000 (talk) 17:16, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
- @North8000: Sorry for the slow reply and the logged out reply, I’m pulling a double shift tonight and I don’t log in on the iPad, however the answer is that you should double cite. This establishes two separate citations for the information, so if we lose one we can use the other in cases like that to confirm the info. I believe that I had seen Stillwell’s book on Missouri before, it should be several hundred pages of detailed information if I recall correctly…only now that I’m not a student I can’t get back to the library on campus to use the book because the COVID pandemic has it limited to students and staff only at the moment. 2600:1011:B11E:5520:CD89:8DDE:70F1:59CE (talk) 00:21, 10 May 2022 (UTC)
- Yes, an immense and thorough book. And it lists about 300 sources that it drew from (including interviews etc.) The only limitation is that it ends approx 1995. At that point the ship was de-comissioned, in Brementon, somewhat open to visitors. North8000 (talk) 15:35, 10 May 2022 (UTC)
Regarding the question of Margaret Truman in the info box, regarding info boxes, I'm sort of a "when in doubt, leave it out" guy. But that aside, she had a long history with / interactions with the ship that spanned many decades, and her dad was a strong and powerful (including as president) supporter of the ship, also with many interactions with the ship. IMO probably merits a line in the info box. North8000 (talk) 14:17, 13 May 2022 (UTC)
I finished reading the Stillwell book and started adding cites in places where only DANFS was cited. Also based on detailed coverage in Stillwell, fixed what was clearly an error (results of star shell accident) and removed the web site source that had the error and was only used for that item. North8000 (talk) 14:23, 13 May 2022 (UTC) I added put at least a dozen Stillwell cites in places that previously had only DANFS cites. The DANFOS cited could be removed but per advice above, I did not remove them so DANFS is cited as many times as before, albeit now with less reliance it. I believe that this resolves that issue. North8000 (talk) 17:20, 24 May 2022 (UTC)
- I'm out of town for work right now but will try to give this a read through when I get a chance. Hog Farm Talk 19:34, 24 May 2022 (UTC)
- I'm back, will begin a readthrough with any comments at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review/USS Missouri (BB-63)/archive1 Hog Farm Talk 23:05, 30 May 2022 (UTC)
- I'm out of town for work right now but will try to give this a read through when I get a chance. Hog Farm Talk 19:34, 24 May 2022 (UTC)
- Could we get an update on status here? Nikkimaria (talk) 03:19, 25 June 2022 (UTC)
- A good bit of the follow-up list on the FAR talk has been addressed, but there's still about a half-dozen things outstanding on that list - some larger, some smaller. Hog Farm Talk 18:10, 26 June 2022 (UTC)
- @Hog Farm:@Nikkimaria: I'm planning on fixing most of them while hoping that others will jump in and beat me to it. But with the backlog crisis at New Page Patrol, I've been spending most of my wiki-minutes there lately. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 19:31, 26 June 2022 (UTC)
- A good bit of the follow-up list on the FAR talk has been addressed, but there's still about a half-dozen things outstanding on that list - some larger, some smaller. Hog Farm Talk 18:10, 26 June 2022 (UTC)