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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/History of British Airways/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 not promoted by Karanacs 14:47, 25 May 2010 [1].

History of British Airways edit

History of British Airways (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): Kyteto (talk) 17:00, 4 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured article because I feel that it is one of the best airliner history pages on Wikipedia; I think its level of balance and thoroughness throughout is to the standard of great writing that should exemplify all such pages, but often this isn't the case, it is an exception rather than the standard grade, it is therefore exceptional in its quality. The topic itself is of fair importance to world aviation, as it walks the reader through the rise and downturn of British Airways, which became the most profitable airline in the world in 1993, and rapidly expanded following privatisation; its origins, twists and turns, and the usage of the Concorde, it is documented very well if I say so myself. Of all the articles I've work on in the last year, I regard it as the best of its type, and t

That should be that for the broken refs, think they're gone now. Kyteto (talk) 18:22, 4 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks; no dead links left. Ucucha 18:25, 4 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments: I love flying British Airways! Well done on the article so far, although I do see a few issues that need to be addressed:
  • The external link checker says that there are some broken ELs, and some of the redirects may need to be checked.
  • There's nothing wrong with them, per se, but I find the wording of the section headers somewhat strange. Could just be my personal opinion, but "Consolidation and Concorde (1970s)" or "Consolidation and Concorde: 1970s" is more logical than "1970s – Consolidation and Concorde"; perhaps it's the dash, with the years first, that's bothering me?
  • Trying it with a ';' instead of '-', let me know if this is more visually appealling. I'd prefer to keep the dates on the left hand side of the period titles as it looks neater in the contents box; however I'm open on this one if it is a sought change. Kyteto (talk) 22:05, 4 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • While I appreciate the number of citations, and don't doubt that the material is entirely verifiable, I suspect that overciting may be a problem here. Some paragraphs contain two or three (sometimes even more) citations for each claim, which makes the text blocky and difficult to read. Here's an extreme example of two back-to-back sentences under "Consolidation and Concorde":
  • "British Caledonian had to withdraw from the East African routes as well as from the London-New York and London-Los Angeles routes in favour of BA.[25][26][27][28] In return, British Caledonian became the sole British flag carrier to the entire South American mainland, taking over routes former served by British Airways to Colombia, Peru and Venezuela.[28][25][27][29][30]" Are nine citations truly necessary for two (seemingly matter of fact) sentences?
  • Redistributed and deleted references where bulked together, at least a dozen now gone. The extreme example has been significantly reduced and spread. 22:05, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
  • The citations are not formatted consistently; italicize publications like New York Times and The Independent, but websites like those maintained by the British Airways are not italicized. For news articles, you do not need to include the place of publication -- I see a few "London: The Independent" and similar attributions. Also, make sure that dates are formatted consistently: 04-05-2010 or 4 May 2010 in published/retrieved dates?
  • I've sorted all the dates, I believe, the location tags are now gone, and the italics...are improving. I'll get there, but there's likely going to be one or two always illuding me, hiding within 200 references. Improvements ahoy. Kyteto (talk) 22:05, 4 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • The "Bibliography" does not seem to be that at all; are these books for Further Reading? Also, capitalization needs to be standardized and place of publication needs to be included along with the publishers.
  • Some of them could be put under Further Reading; some were used as inspirations of thought and theme, if not direct quotations or relivance to passages, and a few of them actually do have references in the many citations made. I'll seperate some out some into Further Reading now. Kyteto (talk) 22:05, 4 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • On second thought, is there a reason the books listed under "Bibliography" are not used as sources? Have they been consulted?
  • I believe I have looked at all on the list that I could find an available copy of, either free examples or hard copies. A few of them are originals from the main article, and I'm not sure what their influences were, and I couldn't want to necessarily cut the credit if they did have an active role with another editor. Some will be shifted, ones I know were marginal in my constructions or looked like interesting topical books. Kyteto (talk) 22:05, 4 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I haven't read the article in full, so these are just a few things that jumped out at me while quickly looking at the article. On a sidenote, I'm not sure the Good Article review was as thorough as it should have been, and I would have suggested a Peer Review before making the leap to FAC. Maybe next time. :) María (habla conmigo) 17:41, 4 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunantly a daft bot shot through the article today of all days, and decided to throw up a whole bunch of Access Dates in a format other than the one that was used most of the way though the article...It also added the locations. Sometimes bots are far more harm than good, is it okay to leave the locations, else its own will likely simply let it rejam the article to how it wants it to be. Pity he couldn't have used it to bring it into uniformity far faster than typing it all out by hand again... Thansk for the commentry. There was a three month long peer review, there was only two comments and both were made by me; the community that reviews articles of this subtype is effectively dead, and I was advised this was the only avenue I had besides waiting for several years to pass in the hope somebody might say something! :P So the review process beforehand was kind of thin, sad really. Kyteto (talk) 18:26, 4 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I know it's a bother, but the citations need to be made consistent; if you list the location for some of them, you have to list it for all of them. Same thing with date formatting. It's a tedious process, but such things really help an article's readability and overall professional appearance. FYI, there's always WP:PR, which accepts any-ole' article, no matter the subject material. There's typically a backlog, which means you generally have to wait a week-or-so, but there is at least one reviewer. I always list an article there before FAC, and I know that others consider it a necessary step for them, as well. María (habla conmigo) 19:28, 4 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed, I've spent two hours already reformatting refs, nowhere near done. I HATE bots fooling around with no supervision. All Location tags have been removed from ordinary references now, continuing still with other data. Kyteto (talk) 20:04, 4 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I believe most of my previous concerns have been addressed, save for the biblio/sourcing, which seems to be ongoing. Because I still haven't read the article in full, however, I have to hold back on making an official judgment. Everything looks much better, technically-speaking, however -- great work! María (habla conmigo) 17:06, 14 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comments
  • Note: alt text is currently no longer required for FAs, and the guideline is under discussion from what I've seen. However, if one image in the article currently has it, and the rest don't, blah blah blah consistency etc. :) María (habla conmigo) 20:56, 4 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I can find any examples of Alt text, though I barely understand what it is. Certainly can't see any images that have the "|alt=" or anything like that which the wikipedia page suggests. As it isn't required, and I can't find any trace of it, can the example either be pointed out to make it blatently obvious where it is so it can be oblitorated for consistancy, or shall we run on the assumption that it isn't there at all, in which case consistancy is present in this issue and thus no changes need to be made. Also the External link has been booted out, the list has been added, and I'm not sure how the Template:Infobox Aviation can be used in this context, none of the othe airliner history articles use it and I have nothing to go on at what to make it do or enter into it to make it useful. Kyteto (talk) 21:52, 4 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It is the image in the British Airways navbox that is appearing with alt text although it is not formatted as such. If there is no longer a requirement for alt text can I suggest that the check tool link is removed from the toolbox? Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 22:39, 4 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I've just implimented the Template Infobox, finally got inspiration for what would be ideal to put into it.Kyteto (talk) 22:02, 7 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That has improved the look of the page, should the title be 'History of British Airways' to match the article? Looking at the lead section it seems to replicate the main BA article in places (probably from a split). There are personalities in section headers (Ayling, Eddington and Walsh) that are not yet mentioned in the lead. I wonder if it would be better to show in full the titles of BOAC and BEA with the abbreviations in parentheses afterwards at the first instance, I think that is standard WP practise? The current cabin crew industrial action is covered in the article but not mentioned in the lead, it's a fairly significant development. Sorry for the late reply, have been on holiday, cheers. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 10:57, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'd disagree with much more than the passing reference to the industrial troubles of today. The Union, UNITE, practically throws a major strop every two years, it's only mentionable now because of the recession and the heavier-than-usual reforms that have been implimented to help the airline through it. I don't see the industrial action itself as anything notable, a quick Google seach just before making this comment paints the image of this basically being the norm for the last twenty or so years, UNITE just likes striking and making a lot of noise, this one is no more remarkable than the 2007, 2004, 2002, 1999 or so on and so on, to me at least. Kyteto (talk) 19:24, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments
    • Proofread done - I made five or six minor changes. If you look at the article history there's one, with the longest edit summary, that might bear re-checking as I'm not sure my fix is to the intended meaning. Otherwise looks very good.
    • Readability / prose style - very good. Airlines are not the slightest bit in my zones of interest. I flagged a bit towards the end but the article very much kept me engaged which is no mean feat given my scant interest in the subject. I didn't notice any clunking or garbled sentences.
    • Structure - takes a chronological approach and that seems the best and most obvious way to go about it. Very good.
    • Afraid I'm still not doing the support/oppose thing despite people's increasing impatience with me to do so :o) - Basically I still need to be much more aware of the criteria which I will revise soon. I'm just not up to it for health reasons right now so am limiting my input to proofreading and lending a hand with that aspect of things. 'Light duties' as it were. --bodnotbod (talk) 13:45, 5 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. Your input has been useful; I'm very pleased to know that others find the Readability to be very good, it is something of a relief! Everyone's statements and comments have been useful so far; does anybody feel I need to address their issue raised more thoroughly, or has it been sufficiently straightened out? Kyteto (talk) 21:34, 7 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Sources and referencing comments: Action is awaited on a number of issues raised in the review, above, relating to references, e.g. consistent italicisation of newspaper and journal names, the status of the bibliography etc. Assuming that these are being dealt with, there are other issues:

  • Wikilinking of newspaper and journal names seems haphazard at present. The principle should be the same as within the article - link at first mention.
  • There are numerous instances of "New York Times" rather than the correct "The New York Times". Also, in ref. 90, "Washington Times" rather than "The Washington Times"
  • Refs 10, 169 and 172 are cited to "The Telegraph". The newspaper's correct name is "The Daily Telegraph" as in 179, 181, 191 and 193.
  • Ref 66 is the single citation to a book in the dodgy bibliography. In the ref, the author is given as "Martyn, Gregory" and the year as 2000. In the bibliography he is "Gregory, Martyn" and the year is 1996.
  • Ref 90 (The Washington Times": it needs to be noted that this is a subscription service.
  • You should reformat ref 95 so that it is clear that the citation is to p. 62 of the World Airline Directory
  • Ref 155: correct me if I am wrong, but I don't think the newspaper in question is called "Knight Ridder Tribune".

The above, while needing attention, are all relatively minor matters. My main concern relating to sourcing is whether the history of a major corporation can be written almost entirely on the basis of newspaper and online journalism. Why has no effort been made to use the contents of the books that have been listed? Has any serious attempt been made to survey the literature and perhaps identify other texts that could have been used? Brianboulton (talk) 20:22, 10 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It is thanks to you that you main area of concern has now been greatly addressed and the article has been made better. I would protest at the use of the term "no effort has been made", a more appropritate and polite term would have been "no effective effort has been made", as there were hours wasted by myself trying to search for books and and find relivant texts, much of the time it was immensely slow and painstakingly in vain. In the current rebuilt revision of the article, 10% of all references now lead back to books, the Bibliography has been readdressed with the book list nearly doubled, this aspect is now more covered. I find the book searches more tiresome and slower than looking for exactly the eras and events I plan to cover in detail, and often used the books beforehand as more for their theme and tone that factual statements as that simply took longer to do. I felt that the news sources met the WP:RS terms and thus were just as valid, if correctly used with thorough implimentation and effective study, this article has been a great learning experience on the subject while re-writing it over and over to improve it. The lack of availability of many books on topic, and the easy availability of what was used, lent itself to developing the current state of affairs. Can you make further reflection with the new changes to address your concerns, do they go far enough? Kyteto (talk) 20:49, 11 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
First, I appreciate that you have worked hard on this article and I am sorry if my comments gave you a different impression. With a featured article candidate, however, it is the best, rather than the easiest available, sources that should be used. In an article such as this, I would expect the earlier history to be cited mainly to acknowledged aviation history texts, with news and online sources used for more recent events. You have now introduced some book references, but they are still sparse in the areas where I would expect them to predominate. I will leave it to other reviewers to decide whether the present sourcing satisfies criterion 1(c).
Meanwhile, there is still work to do on the more minor issues I raised. Newspaper titles remain unitalicised; some of these titles are still wrongly given ("New York Times" et al); we still have The Telegraph'; "Knight Ridder/Tribune" should be "Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News"; the first two books in the bibliography are uncited and therefore should be listed as Further reading, etc. I'll check again in a couple of days. Brianboulton (talk) 16:01, 12 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'll address the other points shortly when I have time again; but removing the first two books would be inadvisable, ass it would be potentially create the sitauation where this article could be accused of plagurism. There were no direct citations, but Cooke's theming was the basis for some of my own lines of inquiry, to remove that credit would essentially be deleting the sourcing justly deserved; and would be highly disapproved of to say the least of any proper Bibliography. Kyteto (talk) 19:07, 12 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
On further advice on the normal proceedures, the sources have now been move, albiet with my feelings that it is inappropriate in a way. Referencing to books now composes 18% of all references; the bibliography now contains more books that most Aviation FA-level articles, this looking increasingly sufficient in my eyes, but is this the case? I'll focus on the formatting tomorrow, today was attention on the citation sources, which went okay. Kyteto (talk) 20:45, 13 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The minor formatting appears to be done; I either have eliminated all the flawed examples of the italtics now on my fourth run through, or there are so few it isn't spottable within reason. If I do catch one, I'll obviously fix it, but it shouldn't be as serious an issue now that the predominant principle is set within the bulk of references. The publisher names have been fixed swiftly as well. Not sure how to mark the Washington Post ref that needs a subscription, there doesn't appear to be a formatting type that jumps out announcing its role in this function that I can find in the Cite Web/Cite News templates homepages, so exactly how to mark them is beyond my knowledge of the coding used on Wikipedia. Kyteto (talk) 18:44, 15 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Further referencing issues: You have responded to my earlier comments and made various improvements. However, there is more to be done to comply with what is required in a featured article:-

  • You seem to have covered the italicisation of newspaper and journal titles. However, italicisation should not be applied to organisations or entities that are not newspapers or journals. Hence, "BBC News", "Reuters". etc should not be italicised.
  • There is still at least one New York Times (without "The"), and four mentions of Washington Post (without "The")
  • [217] Financial Advice.co.uk - who are they? How do we know this is a reliable source? I can't find any information about who is behind it, perhaps you know.
  • In the bibliography, book titles should be given formal capitalisation, thus: Introduction to British Politics; The Airline Business, etc.
  • As to the Washington Post subscription, that appears to be a dead issue as you have seem to have dropped that reference. Should the matter arise elsewhere, just use the template (subscription required)

Brianboulton (talk) 22:23, 17 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

All done. Kyteto (talk) 15:21, 18 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No, the italicisations issues in references are not all done. See 11, 109, 169, 187, 188, 196, 207, 211, 215. In ref 213 the publisher should be given as International Business Times. These matters may seem tiresome, but it is important that you get these right if the article is to be featured. Brianboulton (talk) 17:02, 18 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Once again logging action as completed, standing by for further instructions. Kyteto (talk) 19:55, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Please look again at my note, above, which reads: "italicisation should not be applied to organisations or entities that are not newspapers or journals. Hence, "BBC News", "Reuters". etc should not be italicised." Then look again at refs 11, 109, 169, 187 and 188. Rather than "standing by for further instructions", perhaps you should thoroughly familarise yourself with the MOS conventions relating to citation formats. I know it's tedious and tiresome, but not as tedious and tiresome as this repeated trawling through, to check for format errors. Brianboulton (talk) 10:11, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]


  • Comments -- I've gone right through this article now, as can be seen by my usual copyedits, and am pretty close to supporting. The prose is very good IMO, structure simple and logical, detail appropriate and neutral in tone, and illustrations excellent. I tend to agree somewhat that the balance of sourcing could be shifted a bit more to books, but that seems to be under way and if a little more can be done there (mainly, as Brian says, re. the early years) I'll be quite happy. I applaud Kyteto's concern with removing uncited books from the bibliography when they've informed his approach, however moving them to Further Reading is the WP MOS guideline. On the other hand, if they've been important in the article's development, why not cite them on a couple of the major points? Then they can safely remain in the Bibliography, and you're also getting in more book citations... ;-) Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 04:45, 13 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Wish I still had the book to cite from. :) But I've been digging up others, pooling through other wiki articles, internet searchs, and the library to see what I can get, it hasn't been bad. Struggling with the early years really, as most of the books from that time aren't even previewed online, and I'm struggling to find the relivant pieces of info in the few that I can access. I'll keep hitting it, but it's slowing down as I run low on originality in my hunt. Better lucky another day than today perhaps. Kyteto (talk) 20:50, 13 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments -- looking quite promising; I read through the article twice (and having worked on some of the references when it was part of the main BA article, it was familiar), and felt it has improved a lot, a credit to Kyteto's hard work and other editors. I made some minor edits for consistency and flow; expanded the lead to summarise the body in more detail; and arranged the picture layout a bit. Hopefully the above suggestions can be addressed to the satisfaction of fellow editors, and move this nomination forward. The improved referencing, chronological organisation, and article details and scope are very well done. SynergyStar (talk) 08:20, 13 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Wanted to leave a note here stated that I have completed all tasks assigned as I see possible, and thus have no course or direction for making more edits and improvements to the article. Further judgements by those other than myself will determine my next actions, for now I shall wait. Kyteto (talk) 16:57, 16 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your hard work, Kyteto, and diligence. I've read through the article several times now, having made some small edits for flow and order, and it looks good. SynergyStar (talk) 08:03, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It's ok.

  1. UK needs a very good reason to be linked. Please see WP:OVERLINK. See also WP:MOSDASH concerning page and year ranges. I've run the script through it. Does "airline" provide useful information? It's a word all English-speakers are supposed to known, isn't it?
I believe the question of if "airline" is worth linking to or is a worthwhile article on wikipedia would be a question for the Aviation taskforce, and WP:Wikipedia is not a dictionary. It seems to be well enough developed to be useful to somebody who doesn't well understand what this kind of commerial aviation business is, it has more than a few perculiarities, compared with closed national operators or the state-regulated providers of air transport that are common in some nations. Kyteto (talk) 14:11, 22 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  1. early-2000s, not normally hyphenated like "mid-".
  2. "and later to Canberra, Australia"—who would bother flying there (it's tiny), before establishing routes to the large Australian cities? I think it doesn't need a link. By contrast, "Johannesburg does need a link if you're not adding ", South Africa" (but I suggest removing the link and adding the country).
Why bother to fly there, that's an issue for the 1960s Concorde development team rather than the Wikipedia article. If it was officially recorded as a planned consideration, as it has by the reference given, then it is true and mentionable. The fact it makes no commercial sense is not our job to evaluate as editors, we record events and official observations, not build business cases on what would and wouldn't be good routes as that would be OR. Kyteto (talk) 14:11, 22 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  1. Image size and placement: the black and whites of airplanes are really good, but why so small? They need to be boosted (try 240px or 250 so we can distinguish the model without a magnifying glass), and consider all on the right side? The colour pics: hasn't colour photography come a long way since the 70s. Talk about washed out. And let's not crowd it out like the Heathrow article: do we really need that very very plain pic of head office? Could be any head office, couldn't it. Just because it's in the Commons doesn't mean use it.
All of the images are non-forced in size right now, which is what is standard to most wiki pages and most images outside of the lead image of an article or those of top importance. I believe this is actually preferred by the MOS to not force regular images outside of sizes, but if you are interested in certain images you can click on them to see the larger version on its own. I actually didn't adopt the Head Office picture, I didn't want to offend the user who recently added it by ditching it at once, but if it is resented then it shall be lost. I didn't take every image going, far from it, more than 80% of the Commons images on topic are not used here. Kyteto (talk) 14:11, 22 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  1. What is "Landor livery"? You certainly couldn't pick it out from the pic. By contrast, the "British Airways Boeing 777-200ER with ethnic livery introduced in 1997" pic is large enough, but what is "ethnic" about the livery? Oh, Scotch tape? Bizarre. Embarrassing, actually. And is that a christian cross I see? And what is "ethnic" about the "British Airways Boeing 767-300ER with ethnic livery" pic? That e word is questionable: does it mean "non-anglo"? I hope no one is offended by the cultural-centric angle.
I actually don't know why they called them the Ethnic liveries; but that's the exact wording BA(and the refs) use. They look like a three year old child has splatted his paint brush on the tail in every colour in my own opinion, but apparely they were supposed to be the work of 'talented artists representing the destinations across the globe that are frequented by British Airways'. I see no need to invent terminology where it is given, if the officials give the term 'ethnic livery' that's the one to go for unless a better and more common one exists. Landor livery is explained on the main article, the aircraft paint-job developed by a company named Landor, hence the name, its just the ID of the plane colour scheme at one point in company history. If you want to know what Landor livery is, compare all the planes marked with the Landor phrase with the ones of today; black undersides verses blue, regal tailfin art verses post-modernist swirl in the Union Jack colours ect, you'll pick it up. Kyteto (talk) 14:11, 22 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  1. MoS says a space between ... and the next word. But we know it starts mid-sentence by the initial small letter, so why bother with the ellipsis points anyway? But it is required in the Walsh quote further down.
  2. "though" is common in AmEng; I don't mind it here, I guess.
  3. upon: "on" nowadays? Tony (talk) 13:20, 22 May 2010 (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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