Talk:USS Nevada (BB-36)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:USS Nevada (BB-36)/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Hi! I will be conducting the GA review of this article, and should have the full review up within a couple of hours. Dana boomer (talk) 00:52, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

GA review (see here for criteria)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS):

   • The Further reading section should come after the sources section, should be consistently referenced (preferably similar to the second one, rather than the first), and probably doesn't need the indented bullet point with the reason for the book being in the further reading section.

   •  Done I moved it before you put your review up. =)

   • There should be no new information (and therefore no references) in the lead. Instead, it should be a summary of the rest of the article.

   • N/A--the citation is for the quote there.

   • OK. However, here's the last paragraph of the lead: "She was not sunk by the two atomic bombs that were detonated, but she was now useless due to how radioactive the ship now was. As a result, she was decommissioned on 29 August 1946 and sunk as a target ship on 31 July 1948." Now...the fact that two atomic bombs were used, the fact that she was useless due to radiation and the fact that she was used as a target ship are all not included in the body of the article - and are therefore new information (not to mention being not referenced).

    Done (target ship was included in the last section!) =)

   • Would it be possible to move the information on the construction of the ship (the first paragraph of the "World War I" section) up to what is now the "Design Changes and Flaws" section and change the section title to "Design and Construction"? It makes more sense to me to have all of this information on the ship's design in one area, rather than split up.

   •  Done

   • Check your section header capitalization. For example, "Design Changes and Flaws" should be "Design changes and flaws"

   • N/A--section name is changed!

   • In the "Pearl Harbor" section, you say "Nevada was not being moored side-by-side". Possibly change to "Nevada was not moored side-by-side"?

   •  Done

   • In the last paragraph of the "Pearl Harbor" section, I think you are missing a closing quotation marks near the end, but I'm not exactly sure where it goes.

   •  Done

   • In the "Attu and D-Day" section, you say "ranged as far as 17 miles (27 km) inland". I'm sure you don't mean the ship sailed over land...was she going up a river? If so, which?

   •  Done Lol, that refers to how far her shells ranged inland...changed sentence around.

   • Same section, you say "but did not diminish her fire", which seems rather unencyclopedic.

   •  Done I blame DANFS. =D

   • In the "Okinawa and Japan" section, the sentence "She served off Okinawa until 30 June, and from 10 July to 7 August she ranged with the 3rd Fleet, which not only bombed the Japanese home islands from the air, but came within range for the Nevada's guns during the closing days of the war." needs a check. The last clause of the sentence doesn't make sense with the rest of the sentence.

   •  Done

   • In the "After the War" section, you say she was supposed to be decommissioned in August, but was sunk in July. Why was this? Isn't it usually the other way around? (Not totally sure here, because I'm not a maritime scholar!)

   •  Done---You are right--until we get to the point that it was supposed to be 29 August 1946, not 1948. fixed!

   • Yeah, this makes a lot more sense now!

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

   • Please format all of your book references the same way. Some of them are "author, publication date, page", others are "title, page" and still others are "author, page". Pick one that includes the author and page number and stick with it. The title and publication date are optional, and only one or the other need to be included.

   •  Done

   • Source names (in the sources section) should not be capitalized, even if the publication has them capitalized.

   •  Done

   • For references 5, 7, 9 and 16, the publisher should be the Naval Historical Center, not "history.navy.mil".

   •  Done

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars etc.:

6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

   • There are a lot of images in this article, including one gallery. Could this number be cut down any, and perhaps the gallery removed? WP discourages galleries unless all of the pictures within them add to the reader's knowledge of the subject. Although all of the pictures are interesting, there are two photos of the ship firing her guns, four of her sailing at various times...do you see my point?

   • Yes, I do....I kinda liked them all though. =D I'll work on that next.
   • Better? One picture for each phase of her life? the_ed17 02:05, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

   • Yes, much better. Thank you! Would you mind staggering the photos so that they're not all lined up down the right side of the page?

   •  Done

   • The Dry Dock and Utah Beach photos should have more concise captions. Maybe simply leave in the first sentence of each caption and remove the rest, or move it to the body?

   •  Done first sentence only.

   • Ummm...what about the Utah Beach photo, where the caption is currently "The Nevada firing her forward 14"/45 guns...on positions ashore, during the landings on "Utah" Beach, 6 June 1944.[5]" This seems a little long to me.

   •  Done Sorry, I had changed it....but didn't save those changes. Sorry! =)

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

This article has a few issues with prose, MOS, images and references that need to be taken care of before the article can become GA. I am putting the article on hold to allow time to deal with these concerns. If you have any questions, you can let me know here on the review page or on my talk page. Dana boomer (talk) 01:23, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Have I dealt with everything? the_ed17 02:05, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Will you take a look at the last paragraph of the lead? The wording that I now changed it to sounds....clunky. Is it alright (and I'm crazy) or will you change it to make it sound better? Thanks, the_ed17 02:52, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Please see my replies (including one about the last paragraph of the lead, which I had an issue with anyway) above. Dana boomer (talk) 18:32, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Alright, I believe that all of the issues have been taken care off. I'll be gone for the next half-hour or so, but I'll chack back then to see if I haven't dealt with everything (assuming that you are still online...!) Thanks for reviewing this! the_ed17 19:56, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

You may want to take one more look through the article; I've added a bunch since last night--(I found two new sources!!!! =D) Thanks, the_ed17 13:46, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Also, is ref #28 a reliable source? the_ed17 20:22, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Everything looks good with the article, so I am passing it to GA. My only comment for further improvement of the article is that there are a lot of quotes, both in-line with the rest of the text and in block quotes. You may want to reword some of these so that they are in your words. As far as ref #28 goes, it's debatable. The information it's sourcing isn't all that contentious, so it's probably fine. However, if you have another source with this information, it would probably be best to use it (or at least use it to back up #28). This is especially true if you intend to take it to FA. Also, text is really not supposed to be sandwiched between pictures. If there is any way to move the two pictures in the "Attu and D-Day" section so that the text isn't sandwiched, it would be great.

Quotes: I'll try...most are that way because they are POV!

Ref: I tried to find another one...if it gets to be a problem, I'll just rm it...thanks!

Sandwich: Will fix!

the_ed17 21:14, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

As a concluding note - I heard someplace that Nevada was the only ship to be both at Pearl Harbor and D-Day. If this is true (I really have no idea, it was just a tidbit from a sailor friend of mine), it might be interesting to include in the article. Nice work. Dana boomer (talk) 21:05, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

It is true! There were three American BB's there that day, the Texas, the Arkansas and the Nevada...and the first two were not at Pearl on the day....adding now! Also, what do you think about what doncram wrote? the_ed17 21:14, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Awesome! Now, about the discussion below: I really have no idea. This seems to be a difference of opinion among WP Ship members, and since I'm not in that area, I'm not sure which way is correct. I know that if there is direct text from the DANFS site, the disclaimer should be there. Also, I don't see how it can hurt to have the disclaimer there even if there aren't any direct quotes, just to back up the specific attributions given in the in-line text. So basically, we're back to I have no idea :) Sorry I can't be more helpful on this. Dana boomer (talk) 21:23, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

No problem, just a question...and will you do one last thing and fix this wording in the lead? "After being salvaged and subsequently modernized, she served as a fire-support ship for D-Day and the invasions of Southern France, Iwo Jima and Okinawa. Being the only battleship at have been at both Pearl Harbor and D-Day, Cornelius Ryan said that the Nevada was "... steaming majestically with all of [her] battle flags flying, ... [even though] the Japanese had sunk and written [her] off at Pearl Harbor" when she was spotted during D-Day.[5]" Thanks! the_ed17 21:29, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Ummm...what's wrong with it? Honestly, I think it sounds good. It shows that not only did she come back from Pearl Harbor, she did it with a bang (no pun intended). The only thing I can think of is perhaps to take Cornelius Ryan's name out of the lead and change the quote around a little. So, "...Pearl Harbor and D-Day, the Nevada was "...steaming majestically with all of [her] battle flags flying..." [5] even though she had been sunk by the Japanese at Pearl Harbor." Or something along those lines. Dana boomer (talk) 21:49, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Ahhh. Good idea....and i just thought that it sounded weird...I knew that there was nothing wrong with it grammatically! Thanks again, the_ed17 22:15, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

question/suggestion on DANFS sourcing

The article has been developed considerably by the_ed17, with careful attention paid to sourcing. Before the use of the DANFS source was indicated mostly by the DANFS disclaimer tag in the article (with message "This article includes text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships."), but without specific attribution of wording by use of quotation marks or block quotes. Now I notice there are now 30 specific footnotes to the DANFS source. I have not just compared the DANFS source vs. the article, but i wonder, has all the originally pasted DANFS text now been sourced just as if it was a copyrighted source, which would justify removing the DANFS disclaimer? Perhaps only a little more checking and use of quotations to indicate wording specifically from DANFS, and/or some rewording to avoid the necessity of quoting, is necessary to justify the removal of the DANFS disclaimer. Perhaps that would be easy for the editor to address right now. In my view that would improve the usefulness of the article a lot, and it would smooth the future nomination of this article to Featured Article. doncram (talk) 20:25, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

One note, it is not the policy of WP:SHIPS to use quotation marks around DANFS text, nor is it wikipedia policy for public domain text. Doncram, you know this, just give it a break. Once this is taken care of the disclaimer will be removed as it has been in the past once articles are developed. -MBK₀₀₄ 21:12, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Hey i was just suggesting removing the disclaimer sooner rather than later. doncram (talk) 23:59, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

And I'll make sure that it gets done. I just saw the suggestion of using the quotes, which as you know we aren't thrilled about. -MBK₀₀₄ 00:44, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

I believe that all copy & pasted text is gone now... the_ed17 02:26, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

It may not be policy to use quotes from public domain sources, but it ought to be. That's intellectual property of the original writer, whether there's payment due or not, & deserves to be recognized as such. TREKphiler ^{hit me ♠} 19:22, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Journey to Babel?

A couple of points. In use of "frame 80" et al., can somebody add clarification of where this is in ref visible topside features? Or do that in preference to the frame # refs? I'm disinclined to the 2d, but it's a bit too naval architectish or former crewmanish for the general reader. In re VCS-7/embarked, it's awkard, & not really clear if VCS-7 was aboard her or others at the same time, separately, jointly, or serially, & which aircraft were embarked where & when. (Neither am I sure that was entirely clear... ;D) Finally, "65 mi": is that 120km (as I'd expect, dealing with a sailor) or 105km? TREKphiler ^{hit me ♠} 19:22, 19:26 & 21:16, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

DOA?

"60 killed"? Fitzsimons, p.1982, says 50. One could be a misprint, but which...? TREKphiler ^{hit me ♠} 19:51, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Gimme shelter

I deleted this

That following Monday, the strategic location of the Nevada made it imperative that she be the first line of defense against Japanese invaders who were expected at any time. Many of the Nevada's crew practiced "repel boarders" with broomsticks, baseball bats and the few small arms that were available. ... [Later,] the [surviving] crew [found themselves] virtually homeless. Many had lost all of their personal items and pay records were in a shambles. For the next few weeks, many of the crew had to convince other ships and shore stations of their legitimacy and their need for uniforms, shelter and food. They were homeless. It was an interesting paradox.

— Bonner, 105.

as not really on point to the ship. If it's really considered essential, I suggest this:

"The ordeal wasn't over quite yet for the Nevada's surviving uninjured crew, however. While they ran "repel boarders" drills with "broomsticks, baseball bats and the few small arms that were available", they were "virtually homeless", their records in the shambles left after the attack, and they were effectively reduced to begging for essentials like food, shelter, and uniforms as a result."

TREKphiler ^{hit me ♠} 20:32, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Turret's replaced with Arizona's?

This was from an unreliable source...can anyone confirm it with a reliable source and add it back in?

"She then headed to New York to have her gun barrels relined and her #1 turret's guns replaced with those salvaged from #2 turret of Arizona."

Thanks and cheers! —the_ed17— 13:10, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Vice Admiral Homer N. Wallin, who oversaw the Pearl Harbor salvage work, states on page 268 of PEARL HARBOR: Why, How, Fleet Salvage and Final Appraisal that nothing was salvaged from turret #2, but the remaining guns from turrets 1, 3 & 4 were offered to the Army. Emanuel Raymond Lewis states, on page 123 of Seacoast Fortifications of the United States, that the Army installed turrets 3 and 4 as "Battery Arizona" on the west coast of Oahu and "Battery Pennsylvania" at the tip of Mokapu Point. Neither battery was completed, although construction continued until the end of World War II. It would seem that only the guns from Arizonas turret 1 are unaccounted for and those were reportedly in the hands of the Army. Thewellman (talk) 14:25, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Humph. Well, I already removed it from the article anyway. =) If anyone has a reliable source that specifically says that this is true, then feel free to add it back in; otherwise, my thanks to Thewellman! —the_ed17— 15:35, 29 September 2008 (UTC)