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Wikipedia:Featured article review/1994 Fairchild Air Force Base B-52 crash/archive1

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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 delisted by Nikkimaria via FACBot (talk) 3:53, 25 March 2023 (UTC) [1].

1994 Fairchild Air Force Base B-52 crash edit

Notified: WikiProject Aviation, WikiProject Washington, WikiProject Disaster management WikiProject Military history Nominator is blocked. Talk page notice 2022-11-15

Review section edit

I am nominating this featured article for review because it has had a page needed template for over 6 months and various page needed tags are placed throughout the article. Having read the article I can see myself that the article is also lacking inline citations and I have little confidence in the content. The article was noticed here. Desertarun (talk) 09:58, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Noting this is a Cla68 FA. His content was always highly trustworthy, so hopefully someone can add the page numbers. Also, somewhere along the line, this article's sourcing was damaged; the promoted version had page numbers. It should be possible here to step back through to see what happened and restore the page numbers. In 2015, it still had most of its page numbers. Could MILHIST editors suggest if a revert to an older version might be in order here? Page numbers that were provided have been removed, and other damage has occurred; Cla68's articles were typically sound, so a revert might be the best option here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 11:36, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It appears from the conversation below we're confident more inline cites aren't needed, so i'll remove that suggestion from the FAR. Desertarun (talk) 16:05, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Propose revert to this 2018 version, the best I can find before the damage and the tag bombing started. Ian Rose kept an eye on the article for a long-time after Cla68's last edit, and cleaning up from that version doesn't look too hard. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 11:52, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Either we're gonna need to let the page numbers slide or someone's gonna have to get ahold of Kern - even the 2007 promoted version lacks page numbers for Kern. Hog Farm Talk 14:14, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed. The two versions aren't dramatically different. The biggest change to the referencing is that bundled citations have been unbundled, which makes the lack of page numbers more obvious and someone has subsequently tagged them all {{pn}} but we don't ever seem to have had page numbers for Kern, Tony T. (1999) Darker Shades of Blue: The Rogue Pilot, even when it was promoted. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 14:49, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
If MilHist editors agree the star might be salvageable, and are willing to do the rest, I will strive to get a copy of Kern to address page numbers. In honor of Cla68-- a very fine editor. In the version I suggest reverting to, Kern is not the only citation for the text, and there are only four missing page nos. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:52, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Articles on events like this are fairly easy once they've been written so it should be salvageable. The scholarship isn't likely to change dramatically and necessitate significant rewriting year on year like a science article, for example. The book is ~£50 on Amazon UK, which is out of my price range, especially for a side project, but if you can resolve the page numbers I'm willing to look at prose and formatting and any updates it might need. A quick look through Google News and Books shows a few new bits, especially around the 25 anniversary, but nothing that couldn't be easily incorporated. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 15:33, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I might be able to ILL it if there's a consensus this is salvageable. Hog Farm Talk 15:55, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
If you or Sandy can get hold of the book and add the page numbers, I'll tackle the rest. Shouldn't be too taxing. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 16:35, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I just looked it up on WorldCat, and I can't get it within driving distance. But I could try for ILL. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:43, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think I see a copy on the Internet Archive. Hog Farm Talk 18:15, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Beam me up, Scotty! I tried, couldn't find it ... SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:16, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'll try to find it again and link it after work - I searched for "darker shades of blue kern" on there on my phone, which doesn't copy and paste well. Hog Farm Talk 19:21, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Here's the IA copy of Kern. Hog Farm Talk 23:25, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Got it ... User:HJ Mitchell, we're on. (I've got to first finish up Hawkeye7's Hanford Site, so you can plunge in and I'll catch up ... some of the Kern pages are already given). Thanks so much Hog Farm! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:28, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@SandyGeorgia and HJ Mitchell: - I am so confused on something here - so our article has the names of Arthur "Bud" Holland, Mark McGeehan, Robert Wolff, and Ken Huston. That copy of Kern has Arthur "Bob" Hammond, Mark McCloud, Robert Moulton, and Ken Wilson. The names in the article appear to be the correct ones. So is Kern masking surnames for privacy reasons, or has something gone terribly wrong with that source? Hog Farm Talk 23:35, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Will need to step back to check ... I remember seeing some edits to that effect that might have been vandalism. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:39, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Resolved - Kern's preface (p. xviii) says he's using pseudonyms. So we shouldn't use any personal names found in Kern. Hog Farm Talk 23:40, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
whew, thx! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:45, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oops, I guess you're suggesting it's not vandalism (sigh) ... will have to dig in ... SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:40, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure if I'm following the final demarcation of duties here but I'm happy to polish prose if someone else can tackle the referencing duties (I'm busy saving my own RAAF unit FAs from becoming FAR fodder, as several have changed their equipment in recent years). I've always had this on my watchlist but somewhere along the line I must've had my back turned because reading top to bottom it's not the article I remember. Did we decide in the end to revert to an earlier version and start from there? The same thought had crossed my mind when re-reading... Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 20:38, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think Sandy and/or HF were going to sort the missing page numbers (though if the source is online I might get to some of that myself). I think I've agreed to help with any prose/formatting gremlins and anything else that crops up to make sure it's up to modern standards, though more eyes are always helpful. But I don't want to start making edits that would get lost if we roll everything back to a previous version. Btw, Ian, I've always appreciated you watching lots of FAs; you must have a huge watchlist! HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 21:03, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Ian Rose and HJ Mitchell: I think this 2018 version the best to revert to; it's clear to me that Ian was following that far, and then wonky stuff starting happening and refs got messed up. It might be worth stepping forward a bit more from there to see if there's a later good version-- I just ran out of time. I have the kids here visiting this week, so can't start in yet, but that version has all page nos except four, and I'm happy to clean up refs and such after you all have resurrected content. Realistically I can't do much in the coming week, so you all feel free to advance without me! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:09, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks Harry, near as I can figure it I have about 1,700 articles (articles, not pages) watchlisted -- is that a lot? Blame much of it on tweaking something in just about every FAC I promote... Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 12:00, 12 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
No, it doesn't. The citations are bundled so it's not as glaring but none of the Kern references citations have page numbers in that version. One ref, for example is "Piper, Chain of Events, p. 136, Kern, Darker Shades of Blue, and USAF, AFR 110-14, pp. 2–3. Kern in red so he stands out. This diff shows all the changes since then so if we're happy with the 2018 version, we can pick through that and restore any improvements, which are probably mostly ref formatting as the citation templates have been changed since then. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 21:20, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Whatever you all decide ... I can comb through Kern later ... SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:24, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I can comb through Kern as well if needed (thankfully the relevant chapter is only about 20-25 pages long). I will have limited time next week though - lots of driving around to client sites for work + studying for the final portion of the CPA exam, which I'm taking in a few weeks. Hog Farm Talk 22:31, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
- I'm going to go ahead and revert to Sandy's suggested revision, with an edit summary pointing to this discussion. If a couple days go by and the edit "sticks", then I can began adding page numbers for Kern. Someone can then go through the changes between that revision and the current one and reflect any improvements. A bit of a personal preference thing here, but I truly believe that use of sfns have benefits, so I'd suggest we consider a possible changeover to sfns in the process. I found a similar switchover to be very much worth the work at Wikipedia:Featured article review/Battle of Blenheim/archive1. Hog Farm Talk 20:09, 12 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Reversion done, and have made some edits to cleanup some changes to templates/portals/categories that had been made between the old revision and today. Hopefully this didn't start any drama with the page. Hog Farm Talk 20:15, 12 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Starting to go through the page numbers for Kern, and I guess there's one additional thing we'll need to do. Kern doesn't support all of the details found in the article, and Thompson is paywalled for me and I can't find a copy of AFR 110-14 online, so I can't verify all the details here. I'm assuming we can trust the original FAC-passed text, but we'll still need to compare the two to find any sneaky additions between then and now. Hog Farm Talk 03:56, 16 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This will take some plugging away - the way the refs are bundled will require creating a bunch of new citation names in order to fix this. Hog Farm Talk 04:20, 16 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@HJ Mitchell and SandyGeorgia: - I'm going to be largely out of commission until the first week of March - I have the final part of the CPA exam coming up. Hog Farm Talk 16:38, 18 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Had visitors, will start catching up this week. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:36, 18 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Arthur "Bud" Holland = Arthur "Bob" Hammond
  • Mark McGeehan = Mark McCloud
  • Robert Wolff = Robert Moulton
  • Ken Huston = Ken Wilson

Guessing at real name = pseudonym used by Kern, but how do we know if this is the actual correlation? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:46, 19 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I can't sort Capotosti, because Kern uses pseudonyms and the dates don't match. We will need another source to sort the Capotosti issue. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:03, 20 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'll try to find something for Capotosti - my exam is this afternoon, so I'll be much less busy once that's out of the way. Hog Farm Talk 15:04, 2 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Hog Farm good luck! Based on what you can find, we might revisit whether this is really saveable :( :( SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:14, 2 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'd had similar issues previously in the article and had just removed the specific names sourced only to Kern, but in hindsight that probably wasn't the best editorial decision. Hog Farm Talk 15:17, 2 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Sandy, it's apparently from this, the Kern thing linked in the ELs, which does use real names. It notes that Capotosti was to take over a week after the airshow and that Capotosti gave Holland the riot act after taking over. The one week appears to be reading in between the lines there. As to "Capotosti did not document his warning to Holland or take any other kind of formal action" that appears to be based on the EL version of Kern's statement that "there was no documentation of the reprimand or counseling given to Lt Col Holland in any form.". Hog Farm Talk 22:53, 2 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
So I'm beginning to wonder if the reason why there was never any page numbers for Kern in the FAC-promoted version is because Cla68 was primarily relying on the web version of Kern, not the print version. And the web version doesn't have page numbers, which would explain the lack of them. Hog Farm Talk 22:57, 2 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
OK, perhaps I'm not focused enough, but I'm still befuddled. Are you able to sort the remaining pieces (that is, should we keep the fAR going)? I was pretty discouraged when I stopped trying to figure out who was who with the pseudonyms ... SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:37, 2 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
For now, I'm feeling reasonably confident I can fix the rest of this, if this version of Kern is okay with reliability and WP:ELNEVER. It uses real names, not the pseudonyms, and was listed as a web source at the time it passed FAC, so I suspect it was what Cla was using, as opposed to the hard copy that's been befuddling us. Hog Farm Talk 23:54, 2 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I suspect much of the Kern can be sort out like this edit, but ... I just flagged some failed verification. The original 2007 version had another citation for the material (not sure why it was removed), but it's that USAF report that I haven't been able to find a way to access. Starting to have some doubts here on this one, it's apparently been very badly damaged since it passed FAC. Hog Farm Talk 00:29, 3 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@SandyGeorgia and HJ Mitchell: I'm afraid I've hitting a sticking point. It's been too badly damaged, and I can only do so much with access only to Kern and the web version of Kern. Have noted several issues

  1. Four page needed on Kern remaining
  2. Our article states "During the first practice session, on 17 June, Holland repeatedly violated these orders. Brooks witnessed this, but took no action. Pellerin flew with Holland on that flight". Kern doesn't say that Pellerin was on the flight - do we have confidence to support that section to Kern and trust that Pellerin's presence on the flight is supported by the USAF AFR source?
  3. Failed paragraph in the investigation section - previously had another source (which I cannot access) when it passed FAC. I do not know why the USAF AFR source was removed - do we feel comfortable just adding that source back?
  4. One of the web sources is probably unreliable, but should be fairly easy to replace
  5. The final paragraph about the 2015 film is a post-FAC addition to a permanently dead website. Do we trust the verifiability there?
  6. "After witnessing the flyover, Colonel Weinman and his deputy commander for operations (DO), Colonel Julich" - the Kern web source which uses real names doesn't mention Weinman. Do we trust this is supported by the inaccessible USAF source?
  7. "Holland's aircraft flew at altitudes below 100 feet (30 m)" - Kern has 100-200 ft. Do we trust the USAF source supports below 100 feet?

If the answer to 2, 3, 6, & 7, is "yes", then this one isn't too far from fixed. If the answer is "no", I don't think it's saveable. Hog Farm Talk 00:23, 5 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I was able to find a working link for the #5 web source, and have verified that content. Unfortunately, we can't just plug-and-play Kern for #4, because Kern doesn't state that the crash is used both in military and civilian contexts. Hog Farm Talk 00:34, 5 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm uncomfortable with the whole thing, and willing to let it go. It is, after all, outside of Cla68's normal Pacific Theatre WWII range of expertise. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:34, 5 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Move to FARC I don't think this one can be resolved without better access to the sources. Hog Farm Talk 01:59, 5 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Move to FARC. Problems with sourcing as discussed above. Desertarun (talk) 12:10, 6 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Move to FARC, sourcing issues. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:51, 8 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

FARC section edit

Sourcing. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:11, 11 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist - I think it's time for this one to go quietly into the night. Inactive nominator, and weird sourcing situations per above. Hog Farm Talk 18:53, 15 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist. A shame, but if large chunks of the article are sourced to an official report, that's an issue in itself, apart from the accessibility of the report. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 19:13, 15 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist. Unfortunately, sourcing problems can't be resolved. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:30, 22 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist sourcing concerns remain. Z1720 (talk) 12:50, 24 March 2023 (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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