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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/B-52 aircraft crash at Fairchild Air Force Base

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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 promoted 16:58, 22 May 2007.

B-52 aircraft crash at Fairchild Air Force Base edit

Respectfully self-nominate this article about a military aircraft accident as a featured article candidate. The article has been through a peer review and A-class review with WikiProject Military history. Cla68 01:50, 6 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • This article needs copy-editing. Some examples from the lead:
  • "occured".
  • "aircrewmembers"? Even if allowable in someone's jargon, it's awkward.
  • "Mishap", I think, is a word reserved for less serious accidents than four people dying in an airplane crash.
If I may butt in, no it isn't. Every accident in the USAF that is recorded is refered to as a mishap. Example: a class A mishap is one that causes the loss of an airframe, more than $1 million in damage, or the loss of a life.
  • "...the chain of events leading to the accident was primarily attributable to..."—this can be worded in a much more direct way.
  • "...USAF leader's reactions to it..." Apostrophe problems: more than one leader, I assume? If not, "the USAF leader's reactions".
  • "Today, the mishap is used in both military and civilian aviation environments as a training aid in teaching crew resource management and still often used by USAF during safety training as an example of the importance of compliance with safety regulations and correcting the behavior of anyone that violates safety procedures"—many problems, the least of which is no period. :)
You could check with the League of Copyeditors. –Outriggr § 07:48, 6 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for the constructive comments. Somehow, I always seem to do a poorer job with copyediting the intro than I do the rest of the article. I corrected "occured", "leader's", and the last sentence. "Aircrewmembers is the word used by most of the article's sources, so I'll stick with that as the appropriate wording. Also, most of the sources for aircraft accidents that I've encountered use the word "mishap" for any type of accident, no matter how severe. Plus, they usually describe each mishap as being at the end of a "chain of events". Thus, I feel that that's the appropriate phrase to use. Cla68 07:57, 6 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - Albeit as a minor contributor (and reference) to this article - Well-written, researched, and documented. Check-Six 19:07, 6 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Wandalstouring 21:25, 6 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak oppose until copy-edit is performed per above. — Deckiller 18:28, 7 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. Still 1a issues as above:
  • in the mishap - I agree that mishap is a fairly weak word to use (and could possibly be considered POV). Used again more than once in the article.
  • Today, the mishap is used in both military and civilian aviation environments as a training aid in teaching crew resource management. - the fact that you're talking about "today" is implied, I think. It's a very vague term anyway. "Both" is redundant.
  • correcting the behavior of anyone that violates safety procedures. - probably should be "anyone who".
  • Degree is sometimes hyphenated with the number, and sometimes not.
  • I think metric conversions are needed for things like 1,000 feet.
Nothing major really, but a careful check through would be good. Trebor 16:00, 12 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
"Mishap" is a perfectly acceptable (and IMHO, a preferred) word for use to describle the type of event this was... I refer you to the USAF's website, where the word is used 14 times to describe their work. Check-Six 05:06, 13 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I made the corrections for everything you suggest except the word "mishap" and metric conversions. Mishap is the best word for this type of incident, because using the word "accident" is problematic since it can be argued that willful violation of safety regulations resulting in a crash might not be considered as an "accident." As far as metric measures go, as long as all of the measures in the article are standardized, either metric or English, then it's ok. Cla68 05:33, 13 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
But that was my problem with mishap. It's defined as "an unfortunate accident", which seems even worse than just "accident" ("unfortunate" implying that luck played a part). While USAF may consider it a "mishap", I think it would be more objective to use something else. WP:UNITS says conversions should generally be included. Trebor 12:59, 13 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I looked it up in Merriam Webster [1] and you're right, "mishap" means "unfortunate accident." What word do you think is more appropriate? I still believe that "accident" has its own problems, and I can't think of another word to use except for "crash." Cla68 13:36, 13 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I can't think of one which really fits either (which is why I can't oppose for this). Hopefully someone else will have an idea. Trebor 15:18, 13 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I went ahead and replaced all occurrences of "mishap" and "accident" with "crash." That appears to be the most neutral word. Cla68 23:44, 13 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • With respect, can we please change 'aircrewmembers' to 'aircrew members?' Simply because the USAF sometimes mangles the English language in its use of jargon doesn't mean we always have to stick to their terms. Buckshot06 18:43, 12 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I changed them all to "crew members." Cla68 05:33, 13 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support One of the few articles that was actually a pleasure to read. — MichaelLinnear 05:45, 13 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose first: well-written overall. Very compelling. Second: the bad news. A few copy-edit errors: "and executed a "wing over,". The...", "...the attention of three Fairchild USAF leaders. One, Lieutenant Colonel Bullock, the current..." what is trying to be said here? It makes me question what else I'm missing. The references are atrocious. For starters it appears that there are only two references used over and over. On top of that it seems that the ref name= function is never used, so the references keep piling up, but no new source has been added, nor page numbers within the references. Check-six.com, for reference [25], doesn't have a specific page linked and the reference would be hard to find otherwise. While these are still probably pretty accurate, I'm not sure that it meets FA article status. Taking this through a Good Article review would probably catch most of these problems. — BQZip01 — talk 06:40, 16 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I corrected the two syntax/grammatical errors you pointed out. I count three, not two, references used over and over, with a few others used to a smaller extent. I believe three main sources are adequate and all three are credible sources. I didn't use the ref name= function because all of the citations are at the end of the paragraphs, which means that if any of the information in any of the paragraphs is changed or a new source becomes available, then the footnotes will have to be changed and it's easier to change a regular footnote than a "ref name" footnote. I clicked on the Check-Six link in the references section and it took me directly to the sourced page, so I'm not sure what you mean by your comment about it. The article has been through a peer review and A-class review with the Military History Project. Cla68 13:22, 16 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, three references. My point is that you don't need a new reference with each cited use.[1] Now that you have cited it,[1] you can use it over and over without having to retype the information.[1] It also renumbers automatically for you if you change the citations.[2] It also minimizes the size of the page and the references section. If the info changes and you want to change a link, then you simply insert the new citation.[1] Basically, you can cut down the bibliography from 25 lines. Some of the references are combinations of refs; please make separate references for each.[1][2] Also missing page numbers in references. Also missing link in #25, not the video clip. — BQZip01 — talk 17:18, 16 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I combined the footnotes and added page numbers as requested. Cla68 07:58, 18 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Much better, but I think the combination of citations is unnecessary. For example, reference 2 (Piper, Chain of Events, p. 136, Kern, Darker Shades of Blue, and USAF, AFR 110-14, p. 2-3.) is actually 3 references with little information about each book or website or whatever it is. Each one should have its own reference, like this.[1][2][3] It would also be useful (but not required) to use citation templates to make sure all relevant information is available so someone else can look up the given information and to make sure book names are italicized or bolded or whatever.
One new thing I just noticed was the images. IAW WP:MoS images should not be sized, so the sizings have to go. In addition, the captions need to be full sentences with periods or sentence fragments without periods.
Make these references more accessible and clear and fix the images and you have my blessing! Great Job! — BQZip01 — talk 14:17, 18 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
P.S. I'm not trying to be an ass, but featured articles should be pretty damn good and meet all of wikipedia guidelines. If you think I'm being a pain, check out the University of Oklahoma section. Of course, that article wasn't written nearly as well as this one... — BQZip01 — talk 14:17, 18 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
No problem. I appreciate the constructive feedback. In this case, however, I'm afraid that I'm going to disagree with you on the rest of your proposed changes to the article. I believe it's fine to combine citations. In fact, I did that in an article that passed FA candidacy just a couple of months ago- Actions along the Matanikau. In our peer reviews in the MilHist project, we encourage other editors to combine their citations. All of the references in the article do use citation templates. I'm usually very strict about using citation templates in the articles I edit. I tried taking all the image sizing out, but when I previewed the article, the images showed up with wildly different sizes. The guidelines say it isn't recommended to use image sizing, but doesn't prohibit it. I use image sizing to make the images appear more or less the same size throughout the article. Aren't all of the image captions in the article full sentences with periods? Cla68 23:37, 21 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  1. Image sizing. Then the images are probably not all thumbnails if they are not showing up as the same size. As for the combination of references, I am not that familiar with references other than to make sure they are verifiable with WP guidelines. As such, they are fine, but I still think they should be individual citations for each reference. — BQZip01 — talk 04:29, 22 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. 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.
  1. ^ a b c d e f "Yahoo!" (HTML). Yahoo! Inc. Retrieved 2007-05-16.
  2. ^ a b c "Google" (HTML). Google Inc. Retrieved 2007-05-16.
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference Example3 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
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