Wikipedia:Featured article review/USS Missouri (BB-63)/archive1

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was kept by Nikkimaria via FACBot (talk) 4:47, 8 January 2023 (UTC) [1].

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USS Missouri (BB-63)

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)

      Stillwell had almost 2 full (interesting) pages on it. Parsecboy you are right, the article had it wrong. I reworked and cited the whole section. North8000 (talk) 22:31, 4 July 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)
• 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)

• 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)

@Hog Farm: I just fixed the last item on your list on the talk page.North8000 (talk) 22:26, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

I've already committed to re-reviewing H.D. and Darjeeling for FARs, but will get back to this one once I get a chance. Hog Farm _Talk 22:39, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

@Hog Farm: No hurry, I was just noting that that particular list was done. The lead still needs a lot of work, which I plan on doing over the next few days.North8000 (talk) 22:57, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

I'm finished with my planned work.North8000 (talk) 01:07, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

I'll try to go give it another read-through this week then. Hog Farm _Talk 01:10, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

I've cleaned up the infobox, which did shorten it by a few lines I think, but I'm not comfortable with removing the entries for motto, badge, etc., without some discussion at WT:Ships. I could be talked into removing the sponsor field, though, as there's been some discussion about that already. Also cleaned up the captions, which including removing alt text which was entirely redundant to the caption, which will be read by screen readers. I suck at alt text, but I invite any and everyone to describe the pictures, preferably in eight words or less (I think that was the old standard).

The bibliography is out of alphabetical order(!) and the cite style is a mess as there's no rhyme or reason for some books to be included in the bibliography while others are full title in the cites. While I'm not all that fond of Garzke & Dulin, I'll probably rewrite the description section using them and Sumrall to replace Conways. I've ordered a copy of Stillwell, and his book on the New Jersey as well, which is probably in just as bad shape as this one, as I think that there's a bit too much DANFS remaining, despite North8000's much-appreciated efforts.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 20:00, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

I added a lot of cites which doubled up on the DANFS cites. Per advice received above I did not remove any of the DANFS cites on those. So many of the DANFS cites are "redundant"/ no longer needed and could easily be removed. North8000 (talk) 19:03, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

~~The bibliography is alphabetized (someone else fixed it). I've received no contrary advice on leaving in the now-double-cited DANFS-cited items, but removing those would reduce the appearance of amount of dependency on DANFS. From looking at it, the rationale for where the reference info is that when the reference is used only once, the full info is in the first section and when the reference is used multiple times then the individaul cites are in the first section and the full reference info is in the second section. IMO this looks like a good rationale. North8000 (talk) 20:39, 12 August 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. So "sponsor" means much more than the usual. Which makes me overall neutral on inclusion in the info box. North8000 (talk) 19:43, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

I've finished with the description section and have removed the duplicate links. Can I get somebody to read over what I've done and see that it reads reasonably well? And remove the under construction lable if satisfied? I've received Stillwell and will start working over the WW2 section next. One thing that I've seen is that the text uses the ship's name far too often. We need to mix it up more with "she", "the ship", "the battleship", etc., to breakup the monotony.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 14:39, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

On images Let's start with two big things:

• I can't find the lead image on history.navy.mil after searching all 64 pages of results for "USS Missouri" which is concerning, given the copyright status is based on it being a US Navy image. There certainly are plenty of other images of Missouri on there, though.
• There are photos of the Missouri in the Korean War conflict, e.g. [2], so it seems odd not to include them.

There's some nice images for various periods, e.g. [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] etc.

Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8% of all FPs} 18:05, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, Adam, I didn't even think to check sourcing on the images when I was cleaning up the captions.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 18:24, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

This kind of article is usually fine with images, but a little care never hurts. I'll go through all of them given time, but, well, tail end of COVID. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8% of all FPs} 18:56, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

• Could we get an update on status here? Nikkimaria (talk) 02:20, 6 August 2022 (UTC)

  Still working my way through the WW2 section.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 03:25, 6 August 2022 (UTC)

  I haven't fully checked images because things got on top of me, for the record. Will try to soon. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8% of all FPs} 12:45, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

  I worked on specific noted items (many are on the talk page associated with this page.) I just did another wrap-up above. I don't have any action items which I'm planning on at the moment. North8000 (talk) 20:43, 12 August 2022 (UTC)

@Sturmvogel 66, Parsecboy, and North8000: no significant amount of editing since August 7; how is this looking? Should we move to FARC just to keep this on track, or is a save in the works? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:04, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

My own work regarding FAR is basically limited to work on improving the article in specifically noted problem areas. I saw that as being completed. Of course, I could be wrong on that. North8000 (talk) 12:15, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, for the reminder, Sandy. I've gotten about halfway through the Korean War section, but things are slowed by having to rewrite the direct quotations(!) from DANFS.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 20:57, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

• Could we get an update on status here? What issues remain outstanding? Nikkimaria (talk) 02:23, 24 September 2022 (UTC)
  • I think Sturm is still working through and overhauling the sourcing Hog Farm _Talk 02:28, 24 September 2022 (UTC)
• Update? Nikkimaria (talk) 03:06, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

@Nikkimaria: Per my August 26th post a few lines up, I think that all of the the specifically noted problems have been fixed. And on these I limit myself to fixing specifically noted problems which I realize might not be the whole picture. North8000 (talk) 21:18, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

@Nikkimaria: I've finished reworking the text.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 11:19, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

• @Llammakey and Hog Farm: have your concerns been addressed? @Adam Cuerden: did you ever get a chance to look at images? Nikkimaria (talk) 00:28, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

  No, sorry. It's been a pretty rough time. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.2% of all FPs} 01:32, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

  I'll try to get back to this at some point, but I'm unspeakably busy with work and a professional exam in RL, so I have no idea when I'll be able to get to this. Hog Farm _Talk 04:26, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

• Yep, my concerns have been addressed. I'm just going to tidy up the Pop culture section to make it consistent with the rest of the article. Llammakey (talk) 13:27, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

• @Llammakey, Sturmvogel 66, and North8000: - I've got a couple of comments, but I think this is really close
  • Complement as of 1986 recommissioning doesn't seem to be cited anywhere
  • Infobox includes more detail about the 1986 fire-control radar than the body does; any chance a slight bit of detail could be added to the body?

I think we're probably good to close without FARC here, though. The primary issues have been well-addressed. Hog Farm _Talk 03:30, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

I'd completely forgotten to cover the evolution of the ship's radar suite aside from the reactivation, so I'm glad that you noticed the skimpiness of the coverage there. I'll handle these remaining issues.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 19:59, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

All done, see how my changes read.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 21:39, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

@Sturmvogel 66: - Based on this change, is there any chance of getting a source for the 1986 complement given the number had to be changed? Hog Farm _Talk 22:19, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

Nvm, it's in there but I missed it. Apologies for the excess ping. Hog Farm _Talk 22:19, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

Is there any problem with me going ahead and making the cites uniform? The Polmar cite is different than the others. Also, is there any intent to incorporate Marks, Craig; Tannenbaum, Rob (2011). I Want My MTV: The Uncensored Story of the Music Video Revolution. New York: Dutton. ISBN 978-1-101-52641-5. into the article, otherwise it should go into the further reading section. Llammakey (talk) 14:19, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

The MTV source can probably go, we seem to have that material pretty well covered without it. Sturm is responsible for most of the referencing, so they'd need to weigh in on the citation style. Hog Farm _Talk 14:27, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

Good catch on the Polmar cite. Feel free to add the video book to the further references section.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 15:58, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

I don't think that the MTV book is useful, maybe not even in the "further references" section. The reference is just to the book in general, there are no page numbers given and as is implicit in your note, the reference is not used/cited in the article. I view the main reason for inclusion of the video to be because it is a part of the history of the ship (which Stillwell thoroughly covered), rather than as an appearance in popular culture. North8000 (talk) 16:07, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I've made one further tweak on the Polmar cite to get the harv ref linking working. I went ahead and removed the MTV book entirely; that incident is a very minor part of the ship's history and IMO the book is too tangential for further reading inclusion. Hog Farm _Talk 16:10, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

I have reviewed the article to try to get this FAR moving. I made some minor grammar changes and added alt text per MOS:ALT. I have some questions/comments below:

• The Korean War section has many paragraphs that talk about the logistics of the war but not necessarily about the ship. While I understand that the reader needs to understand some context about the war, I think there is too much information here that is off topic and perhaps can be summarised, removed, or put in better context regarding Missouri's role in these events. In particular, the paragraph starting with "MacArthur's amphibious landings" does not mention Missouri, and the first half of the subsequent paragraph is very detailed.
• Can any of the sources in the "Further reading" section be used an inline citations in the article? My thoughts are that "comprehensive" FAs have minimal further reading sections as that information should be in the article if it has information to add.

Those are my thoughts. Z1720 (talk) 18:57, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

@Sturmvogel 66 and North8000: ↑ Nikkimaria (talk) 16:22, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

These are just my personal opinions. IMO the Korean war material is pretty heavily about the Mo but there about 4-6 sentences too much about the war in general to be needed to provide context for the Missouri material. They kind of glaringly stand out as such. I don't want to be hasty but would be happy to pare those down or take them out. I'm not sure what to say about the further reading section. It consists of 6 books. One is about the Mo specifically the other 5 are on broader topics. I'd be happy to buy and read the book on the Mo and incorporate it in references because a book specifically about the MO is likely to improve the article, but that would probably take me 1-2 months. I'm sure there would be a way for someone who has those other 5 books to incorporate them as references but those books are inherently going to be mostly about things other than the MO and have less depth of coverage of the MO than the main references which are focused on the Mo. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 04:26, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

@Z1720 and North8000: - I think the most essential works are currently cited. As of Newell, the only subject-centric source not cited, I found on online retail page saying it has about 190 pages and yet 200 images, so I don't know that it'll have too much actual text on the subject. I'm not as familiar with battleship sourcing as Sturm is, but I don't see any issues with what is cited and what isn't. Hog Farm _Talk 16:01, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

@North8000: I'd support you doing a reduction in words, and if someone thinks something is removed that shouldn't be, we can discuss it here or on the talk page. Z1720 (talk) 21:09, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

Cool. I trimmed the background information. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 22:12, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

Looks good to me.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 16:42, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

Keep My concerns have been resolve or addressed. Z1720 (talk) 16:50, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

• Closing note: This removal candidate has been kept, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please leave the {{featured article review}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:47, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

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