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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/George Andrew Davis, Jr./archive1

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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 by GrahamColm 15:43, 18 February 2012 [1].

George Andrew Davis, Jr. edit

George Andrew Davis, Jr. (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): —Ed!(talk) 01:45, 12 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured article.. —Ed!(talk) 01:45, 12 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Source review - spotchecks not done, PD attribution tag present. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:15, 12 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Inconsistent format used for web references
  • Be consistent in whether initials are spaced or unspaced. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:15, 12 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments Support:

  • Please double cite the citation 16 and 17 in the third paragraph of the Command and Success section. The current citations only confirmed the Chinese side of the story during the November 30 engagement, but it did not mention Davis involvement in anyway.
  • If possible, please add the research from the book Красные Дьяволы на 38-ой Параллель (Red Devils on the 38th Parallel) on the circumstances of Davis' death in the Identity of Assailant section. Aside from an important book on the Russian involvement in the Korean War, Colonel Askold Germon, the author of the book, was personal involved in investigating Davis' death on the Russian side. Jim101 (talk) 15:22, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • This book may also suitable if a competent translator can be found. Jim101 (talk) 21:38, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • Unfortunately I can't seem to find a version of either book which is in a language I can read. —Ed!(talk) 01:49, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

  • Captions that aren't complete sentences shouldn't end in periods
  • File:MiG_Alley_Map.JPG: on what source(s) was this image based?
  • File:ZhangJihui.jpg: is this image also PD in the US?
    • Just edged in there; the image entered PD in 2000. —Ed!(talk) 02:32, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • File:COMMAND_PILOT_WINGS.png: summary needs fixing
  • Several of the service medals are listed as PD or CC by their creators, but shouldn't most of them be PD-USGov-Military-Award?
  • File:United_Nations_Service_Medal_for_Korea_Ribbon.svg: what's the copyright status of the medal design? Nikkimaria (talk) 21:08, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments, leaning toward supporting. This is very good—just needs some fit and finish and possible attention to one section.

  • MoS problems spotted:
    • Image captions that are not complete sentences should not end in periods. I see you say that is fixed above, but it's not.
      • I think I've fixed them all now. —Ed!(talk) 17:05, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • None of them were fixed. We're clearly not connecting here. For example, the caption under the airplane image in the World War II section is "The P-47 Thunderbolt, the type of aircraft Davis flew during World War II." This is not a complete sentence, hence it should not have a period. I just went ahead and fixed them. Also, a friendly suggestion: using edit summaries makes it a lot easier for reviewers to examine the changes you make. --Laser brain (talk) 18:26, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
          • Very good. Thanks for your help. Was there anything else? —Ed!(talk) 07:22, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • "By this point, Davis had 12 victories and the next best pilots claimed only six." WP:ORDINAL. Comparative quantities should both be written out, or both written as numbers.
  • I'm rather disappointed by the Controversy section. Is the current content really all that can be said here? Can you expand on the three controversies? What do you mean by saying that his presence in Korea was disputed? The section raises more questions than it answers.
    • Some of the information fit much better in the biography area (eg. the Army extended his tour because they couldn't find anyone to replace him) and re-stating it in that section would have gotten me in trouble for being repetitive. —Ed!(talk) 17:05, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "This was followed by another 74 hours during Basic Flight Training in Waco, Texas and a final stint of training aboard the T-6 Texan at Aloe Field in Victoria, Texas." Avoid beginning sentences with the vague "This". This what?
  • "He closed to 75 yards (69 m) of the pair" Either "closed to within" or "closed to 75 yards (69 m) from the pair"?
  • "This changed on November 30, Davis' 22nd combat mission in Korea." Same comment as above.
  • "scored a direct hit on Davis' fuselage, causing it to spin out of control" Just the fuselage spun out of control?
  • I do not have access to any of the sources used; therefore, I did not perform a source spot-check.
  • "killing the Chinese flight leader leading" Can we find a way to rephrase this to avoid the "leader leading"?

--Laser brain (talk) 21:46, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    • Fixed. I think that's everything. —Ed!(talk) 17:05, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Not yet. Some of these are explained at WP:MHU. - Dank (push to talk)

  • "Davis did not see action in Korea until late 1951. In spite of his late entrance into the war, ... quickly rising ...": repetition.
  • "before himself being": informal
  • "For the controversial action, he was awarded the Medal of Honor.": People aren't generally awarded this medal for doing something controversial.
    • True. But the article covers the circumstances surrounding the medal extensively. The situation doesn't need whitewashing. —Ed!(talk) 02:15, 10 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "to have become an ace in two wars, and one of only 31 to gather more than 20 victories": nonparallel tenses. The first part could be done more concisely without verbs.
  • "George Andrew Davis, Jr. was born ...": appositive. No comma or two. You write "George Davis Sr." (no commas) in the next sentence.
  • "describe Davis as a ... person who was": conciseness
  • "Once he began flying": wrong expression. "When flying"
  • "this personality was said to become": "this personality" is loaded with psychiatric overtones.
  • "He was known not to drink or smoke and had a substantially more subdued personality on the ground, in spite of his "daredevil" flying style." repetition, conciseness
  • "had three children, Mary Margaret Davis (born 1944) and George Davis III (born 1952). His wife was six months pregnant with their third child, Charles Lynn Davis, at the time of his death in 1952.": You can't have a child when you're dead, but your wife can. He was survived by a third child.
  • I got down to the end of the first section. - Dank (push to talk) 18:37, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Let me know if you spot anything else. —Ed!(talk) 02:15, 10 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • Thanks for your edits. I'll come back to this after someone has checked the rest of the article for conciseness and the other points on our WP:Checklist. - Dank (push to talk) 15:40, 10 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments Support from Noleander (Prose only) ... However, recommend address comments from Ealdgyth below before promoting.

  • Section name "Controversy" - Section title is too sensational - not as professional as it could be. Generally, section titles like "criticism" or "controversy" should be avoided, if there are more descriptive titles available. See WP:Criticism essay. The simplest solution here is just to eliminate the "Controversy" top level section, and leave its 3 subsections under "Korean War" heading.
  • Sources: The line "This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the United States Army Center of Military History." ... I've never seen that before in an article (I have not reviewed many military articles). Is it necessary? Don't many articles use government and/or public domain materials as sources? Is there some WP policy that suggests that that statement should be included? If it is not required, I would omit it, because it implies that there are some sources that were used that are not listed in the "Sources" section.
    • It's there to refer primarily to the awards and decorations section to refer to the text of the awards. They're long text provided by the US Army Institute of Heraldry, and though they;re cited to books, they aren't the intellectual property of those authors. As far as I know, they should have the template. —Ed!(talk) 10:10, 17 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Units: " 500 m (550 yd) " - all other measurements in the article have English with metric in parenthesis.
  • Portal box: The portal box in the See Also section is rendered in a rather ugly way, at least in my Chrome browser. It would look nicer if you used the horizontal layout provided by the {{Subject bar}} template (see Foley Square trial for an example of that usage).
    • My concern would be that four side-by-side portals will render poorly on screens with smaller resolutions. —Ed!(talk) 10:10, 17 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Chronology: The "Early Life" section includes: "His wife was six months pregnant with their third child, Charles Lynn Davis, at the time of his death in 1952." That is out of place in the article, which is otherwise arranged chronologically (certainly his death is not part of his "early life"). This is a common problem in biographical articles: Where to put the information about marriage and death? My suggestion is to take the latter 2 paragraphs from "Early Life" and move them into a new section "Personal Life" at the end of the article. But maybe there are other ways to address it.
  • Identity of assailant: "Although Zhang was credited by the Chinese for shooting down Davis' F-86, Russian sources disputed his claim 40 years later ..." - That sentence appears near the bottom of the section. It needs to be at the top, where the dispute between China and USSR is introduced: the fact that the USSR claim only arose 40 yrs after the event is important.
  • Alt text is missing for photo captioned "Davis in the cockpit of his F-86 Sabre in Korea during his 1952 tour in the war"
  • Prose quality is excellent.
  • Overall, a fine article.

End Noleander comments --Noleander (talk) 02:32, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    • Responded to everything, thanks for your review. —Ed!(talk) 10:10, 17 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support' (switching from Comments:) Ealdgyth - Talk 19:22, 17 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • General comment:
    • Lots of short one and two sentence paragraphs in the early section of the article, this gives the prose a very choppy feel, is there a way they can be combined somewhat to alleviate this?
  • Lead:
    • Given the size of the article, can we make the lead less than four paragraphs? It kind of feels like the lead has been broken into four paragraphs just to meet some sort of "needs four paragraphs in the lead" rule - would read a bit better if the paragraphs were combined somewhat.
    • "...quickly rising to become the war's ace of aces and..." was he the US ace of aces or for the entire war, both Chinese, Korean, and all the other forces taking part?
  • Early life:
    • "...and was known to have taken up farming for a time before entering the military." Wordy - suggest "...and took up farming before entering the military." And why is this before his educational information? Generally folks go to school THEN pick up a career...
  • World War II:
    • Do we really need to know how many hours he had in the various training planes?
      • It establishes his level of experience on various aircraft, and helps to set up the large amount of flight time he accrued which could have contributed to his overconfidence against poorly trained Chinese and Soviet pilots. —Ed!(talk) 10:35, 17 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • New Guinea:
    • "Davis was also known among the pilots to be very confident of himself. Many of the pilots of the unit became aces in short order." These two sentences don't fit very well together... can we make them flow better?
  • The Phillippines:
    • "...in The Philippines, and was.." I do not think it is normal to capitalize "The" before "Phillippines".
  • Post-war:
    • "...demoting him from his temporary rank but effectively allowing..." but we haven't made it clear earlier that his captaincy was temporary...
  • Command:
    • "However, these plans changed when it was determined the Air Force had no capable replacements for Davis who could command his squadron. He gained the nickname "One Burst Davis" for his extremely accurate shooting." these two sentences have nothing to do with each other and the transition is jarring, can we place the second sentence elsewhere or something?
  • Length:
    • "...something rarely done by widows of killed American soldiers in the war." something reads off in this - suggest "...something rarely done during the war by widows of killed American soldiers." or "...something rarely done by widows of American soldiers in the war." or even "...something rarely done by widows of American soldiers at the time."
  • Identity:
    • "In light of these findings and the testimonies from ground troops that had witnessed the battle, Zhang was credited by the Chinese military for shooting down Davis' F-86. Davis' dog tag is currently on display at the Dandong Korean War Museum." again, I don't see the connection between these two sentences and the transition is jarring. Needs rewording.
  • I am not quite ready to support just yet. Besides the above notes, I did some copyediting, and it wouldn't hurt to get someone outside the subject area to review the prose also. It's close, but there are still some spot of less than engaging prose. Ealdgyth - Talk 17:54, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • Responded to everything. Thanks for your review. —Ed!(talk) 10:35, 17 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • Better but still have him farming BEFORE he attended high school.. can we fix that? Ealdgyth - Talk 18:42, 17 February 2012 (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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