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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/United Airlines Flight 93

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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 User:SandyGeorgia 21:59, 26 July 2008 [1].

United Airlines Flight 93

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Nominator(s): VegitaU (talk)

Self-nomination. Seeing how poorly I performed in the 9/11 article FA review, I got a second wind to finish this article. Anyway, I have more than doubled the references, chosen reliable sources over blogs, and rewritten the article in fine detail. I am open to your criticism. -- VegitaU (talk) 23:26, 10 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - I believe that quotations inside blockquotes, or pull quotes in your case, are not supposed to have quotation marks.

Also, Load factor goes to a disambig page. —Mattisse (Talk) 17:37, 11 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Response I've delinked load factor because the article I wanted to link to is uncreated. I've always seen quotes in the quote boxes with quote marks. El Greco, Flight 11, and Flight 77 are all FA with that style. -- 17:57, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
I see what you mean. Pull quotes must be different than regular quotes. —Mattisse (Talk) 18:35, 11 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

  • Current ref 19 (Pauley, Jane "No greater love") is lacking a publisher
Otherwise sources looked good, links checked out with the link checking tool. Ealdgyth - Talk 18:08, 11 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Fixed: The ref you mentioned has been changed. It was a typo on my part. -- VegitaU (talk) 00:24, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Figured, but I hate trying to guess what the editors would format the publisher as... I never guess right! Done! Ealdgyth - Talk 00:26, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - I've read a few sections of the article, and it seems really great, overall. I understood the meaning of the words perfectly, but as I am very bad at catching minor errors, like Ealdgyth did above, I'll wait to see what happens later before supporting or opposing. However, I do have a minor issue about {{reflist}} in which I've left a note on the article's talk page. --haha169 (talk) 18:16, 11 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: I replied to your comment. -- VegitaU (talk) 00:24, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - Would you mind if the dates that are not full dates are delinked? The trend in FAC is to link as little as possible, and linking to specific days or years that are not full dates for no apparent reason is discouraged. —Mattisse (Talk) 19:03, 11 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Reply: No problem. I've gone over and delinked every partial date I could find. -- VegitaU (talk) 00:54, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This is incorrect. Looking at what you've done, VegitaU, there seems to be a misunderstanding of Wikipedia:MOSDATE#Date autoformatting. If you use autoformatting (date linking), full dates, as well as month-day combos need to be linked so user date preferences will display consistently. Dates need to display consistently, both for logged in user with date preferences set, and logged out users, in raw format. Delinking only month-day combos is not correct, because they display according to user preferences, just as full dates do (for example, 27 June or June 27 and 27 June 1949 or June 27, 1949). What you've done now will display dates inconsistently, depending on user preferences, since some month-day combos are linked and some are not. For example, depending on a user's preferences, they could see September 11 in one case, and 11 September 2001 in another, because you've delinked them only partially. If you delink dates, you don't just delink dates that are not full dates; all full dates and month-day combos (not month year or solo years) should be linked or not linked consistently throughout the article, and the raw format should also be consistent. So, you have several issues now. You just delinked (incorrectly) month-day combos, without delinking month day, year combos, while the dates in the text are Month day, year format, but the dates in the citations are year-mm-dd format. To get back to a closer version of correct, you could revert the date delinking you just did. I'm not asking editors to fix the citation date inconsistency, since that's an issue with the cite templates, but you do need to link correctly and consistently within the article. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:46, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I started a thread at MOSDATE, where you can followup with further questions, so it won't take over the FAC page. This new guideline is confusing people. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 07:09, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Okay. Done. -- VegitaU (talk)

Comment - This article is very compelling. You have outlined the sequence of events very well. Some of the direct quotes seem off, but I am assuming you have transcribed them correctly. An excellent article. I am sure to support. —Mattisse (Talk) 01:25, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • It's a good article. I've cleansed it of date autoformatting—both full month/day/years and month days. It is highly appropriate that US formatting be used throughout: all English-speakers are used to hearing and reading September 11, 2001, and "9/11" as an iconic item. Date preferences should not be allowed to reverse this. It's still rather densely linked; I removed some trivials such as "cigarette lighter". — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tony1 (talk • contribs) 16:54, July 12, 2008
    Tony, thanks for finishing the dates, but we still need to discuss (at the MOSDATE thread preferably) how to handle delinking when the citation templates aren't consistent. The article now has delinked dates in Month day, year format, while the citations have linked dates in the ISO format. As I explained at the MOSDATE thread, since that is a cite template issue, I'm inclined to overlook it for now, as long as the article and the citations are each separately consistent. Followup there, but on this FAC, we need to be sure there's no misunderstanding about partial linking/delinking within the article, which was the status last night. (VegitaU, since this is all somewhat off topic because of the guideline change, I'll move all of this delinking talk to the talk page later.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:01, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - Just some suggestions to reduce the linking per User:Tony1 above. Perhaps Al-Qaeda could be delinked right before Osama bin Laden since it is linked in the Osama article anyway. Maybe you could pipe the names of some Florida towns, since Florida is linked on its own, e.g. Miami, Orlando. Also, does linking GTE right before airphones contribute anything? —Mattisse (Talk) 18:23, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support with regard to well-written and engaging prose. Some observations:
  • This might be a British thing but do planes lift-off or take-off?
  • Was the expression "knifed" actually used?
  • American euphemisms are well-known but you don't see bathrooms on planes, (we have the better "lavatory" elsewhere.
  • I don't know what an "auto shop" is.
  • We have "Captitol" not linked, then U.S. Capitol not linked and then United States Capitol.
  • The penultimate sentence hangs, it's more like a prepositional phrase.
  • (I wish that sound clip icon didn't have pretty little musical notes coming from the speaker).

Thanks for an interesting and valuable contribution. GrahamColmTalk 08:18, 13 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support. Another featured article from the Wikipedia House of Mirth, VegitaU. Why must I stare at flowering vegetation for an hour or so after reading your articles?...In looking at sources, have you considered making #13 and #15 bibliography entries and citing page numbers instead? Practically, it helps readers find the place you're citing much quicker, especially if it's a substantial text such as the 9/11 Commission Report. Personally, I get nervous citing a source more than five times, and it helps allay suspicion that you're interpreting a large amount of text to your liking. --Moni3 (talk) 14:58, 13 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Hard spaces and autoformat-free dates: well, I don't agree entirely with Sandy about the necessity of adding hard spaces between month and day, but I suppose in the larger scheme of things, it's preferable. Please consider doing this; a monobook should shortly be available that does this automatically (more news later). I've added the hard spaces to the dates in this article.
I note that during the recent debate at MOS about how widely hard-spaces should be used, Sandy was on the wide-usage end; the argument that hard-spaces should be used judiciously won the day, i.e., in places where it's awkward to see a new line start with a number, or where it's awkward to read a word and its associated number over a line-break. As worded previously, MOS said "11 chairs" had to be joined by a hard-space—the consensus was that this was taking things too far, given that hard spaces can exert an undesirable stretching of words across a line, especially where the compound unit is a long string. TONY (talk) 05:43, 14 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Just saying what's in WP:NBSP. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:49, 14 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I don't like hard spaces, either. Gary King (talk) 05:58, 14 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
We should take this conversation to WP:MOSDATE, but with autoformatting, it's built in. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:13, 14 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It is not built in. That is a myth. —Mattisse (Talk) 12:56, 15 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
All evidence was taken by the NTSB, FBI, FAA, or other federal agencies. -- VegitaU (talk) 16:08, 14 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
What about Image:ZJarrah.JPG? --NE2 16:17, 14 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Picture from his passport, acquired by the FBI. -- VegitaU (talk) 16:21, 14 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
And German passport photos are public domain? --NE2 16:27, 14 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
{{PD-GermanGov}} I would say so. The FBI doesn't have anything on their site about copyrights. -- VegitaU (talk) 16:30, 14 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
That template claims "statute, ordinance, official decree or judgment", which a passport photo doesn't seem to be. de:Amtliches Werk doesn't include the word "reisepass" (passport). --NE2 17:33, 14 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
No, but it does say "other official works" of the government. That is what a passport is: an official document issued by the governing body of a nation. -- VegitaU (talk) 18:09, 14 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see anything in the template about "other official works". --NE2 18:12, 14 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Commons similarly says that only certain types are in the PD. --NE2 18:15, 14 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I started a section at commons:Commons talk:Licensing#Image:ZJarrah.JPG. --NE2 18:24, 14 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That's cool, but if this is so, this and this will have to be redone. The FBI has probably assumed control of this work. -- VegitaU (talk) 18:30, 14 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Is there resolution yet on the image issue? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:57, 20 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Not sure. User:NE2 brought it up on commons, but no one is talking. I'm dead-set certain the photo is public domain. It was released after the Moussaoui trial here and is not his passport photo seen here. My problem is I can't find where it came from besides the FBI site. -- VegitaU (talk) 00:53, 21 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose - Although the article is vastly improved, there are things to address.

  • The "hijackers" section stops at June 27, when the last hijacker arrived, and then the article jumps ahead to the hijackers checking in for the flight on September 11.
  • Some of the details in the "hijackers" section are excessive, such as that all three "muscle" hijackers arrived from Dubai.
  • "Jarrah called his girlfriend..." - what girlfriend? nothing about her is mentioned previously in the article. That he had a girlfriend and was closer to his family was important. He is the one who had doubts and considered dropping out of the 9/11 plot.
  • "It remained delayed on the ground and did not takeoff until 08:42" - this is a rather important fact, but the article doesn't say anything about why the flight was delayed.
  • "Investigators found some debris scattered up to eight miles ..." - debris, such as what?
  • A lot of disparate information is in the "Aftermath" section. How is Bin Laden, Atef, and KSM discussing targets something that fits in the aftermath section? This part of the article probably belongs elsewhere, with a subheading.
  • Why did Flight 93 have only four hijackers? what about the "fifth" hijacker, and speculation surrounding that?

This is just a preliminary review, with some things to work on. I can do a more detailed review sometime this week. --Aude (talk) 23:39, 14 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: Alright, I've made as many changes as I could from your issues. Let me address them.
  • It's hard to find notable information about the hijackers between their arrival and 9/11. Most of the stories come from witness testimony about running into the men in a hospital or apartment. I don't think that adds anything to the understanding of United Airlines Flight 93. How about you ask some questions where you aren't understanding instead of a vague statement, please.
  • About Ziad's girlfriend: his having a girlfriend is nothing that comes off as jarring or sudden. He had a girlfriend in Germany. She doesn't have much to do with United 93, her info should be in Ziad's article.
  • I don't feel two paragraphs on the intended target really warrants a subheading. Not everything in "aftermath" has to be written in post-attack tense—it just has to deal with post-attack investigation and the intended target was one of those investigative questions.
  • I wrote about the 20th hijacker speculation. Sorry, I'm not sure why they went ahead with a four-man team. You'll have to ask bin Laden. -- VegitaU (talk) 02:51, 20 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for working on these issues. The article is quite good and should pass FAC. But, I think the article needed/needs some tweaks to make it the best it can be, before it does pass. I apologize for being unavailable to help with the article. The best I can do right now is provide comments.
Comment: Thanks for your suggestions. They're very helpful. -- VegitaU (talk) 15:33, 22 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Regarding Aysel (the girlfriend), Jarrah was the only one of the pilot hijackers with close family ties. And he had a girlfriend. Over the summer of 2001, he considered dropping out of the plot. I know there were arguments between Jarrah and Atta, and that according to the 9/11 commission, KSM sent Moussaoui to the U.S. as a possible substitute for Jarrah, should Jarrah drop out. I believe this is all very relevant about Flight 93, that he was the least committed of the four pilot hijackers and considered dropping out.
  • Comment: I've added more info about his close contact with his family and how Atta was upset by this. I also added info on Moussaoui's possible replacement. -- VegitaU (talk) 15:33, 22 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • More about Aysel, I found this using Google Books search, from Inside 9-11: What Really Happened by Der Speigel, "Later he would phone Aysel nearly every day from America. He even called her from the cockpit of United Flight 93. Jarrah must have wavered until the last..." and "Whether or not Ziad Jarrah considered jumping ship" There is no ability to preview pages of the book other than the snippet. I do have the book, but it's in storage and can't access it right now. Terry McDermott's book, Perfect Soldiers also talks about this, but his book is not on Google Books either. I think Jere Longman also discusses about this in his book, Among the Heroes, which is also not on Google Books but is among my books in storage. It would have been nice for the article to come to FAC at a later time, so I could be more helpful to address this. Overall, the article is quite good and this issue shouldn't hold the article back, but this aspect about Jarrah should be addressed somehow, to some extent. --Aude (talk) 13:59, 22 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Regarding the "20th hijacker", all we have is speculation, but that speculation is notable and relevant to Flight 93. What you added looks good.
Here are some specific suggestions:
  • In the lead, it says "The plane fragmented and investigators found debris miles from the crash site" - this is true, but the vast majority of the debris was found in and closeby to the crater. Debris found farther away mainly included pieces of paper which fell "like confetti". Instead of saying "investigators found debris miles from the crash site", maybe the lead should mention that the crash caused a crater.
  • "Based on the 9/11 Commission Report, the aircraft impacted at approximately 580 miles per hour (933 km/h)." - this sentence is not needed. The 9/11 Commission Report isn't the best source for technical details such as this. They compiled their information from other sources. The NTSB and the flight data recorder is a good source, and sufficient.
  • "Conspiracy theorists have accused her of manufacturing the photograph and are thought to have called and harrassed[58] her.[59]" - The references should both go at the end of the sentence, after the punctuation.
This isn't the best time for FAC reviewing/assistance, but I may have some free time later this week to go through the article in detail. Please bear with me. --Aude (talk) 13:39, 22 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • More comments:
    • "muscle" hijackers—unfamiliar term, to me at least. Is there a link to this? Or a ref? Who uses it? Is it a translation from the Arabic?
    • "forty" but "27". nine/10 is the usual boundary between spelling out and rendering as a numeral, unless there's a good reason not to.
    • "take off"—two words as a verb, one as a noun.
    • This WP thing of "conditional-as-future tense": "he would not send the message to Flight 93 until 09:23"—too much of it here, so why not "did not send"? Check others, please.
    • MOS hates --
    • "Jarrah remained seated until the crew were overpowered and then assumed the flight controls out of sight from any of the passengers"—who assumed, Jarrah or the crew?
Comment: These issues have been addressed. -- VegitaU (talk) 02:51, 20 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: I just wanted to let the reviewers know that I'm still dedicated to this, but I won't be able to edit this until this weekend (in 2 days). Thanks for you patience. -- VegitaU (talk) 15:59, 17 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Support - With the changes to the article, I think the article meets all the FAC requirements. I'm double checking sources and details. Some details with the article may have to wait until I come back to the states and cross check with non-web sources (e.g. Without Precedent by Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton). Still the quality if the article is excellent and it should pass now. We can always make minor changes later. --Aude (talk) 20:30, 26 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

These are just random shots. Although I supported, I recommend fresh eyes go through the whole text carefully to polish it: we want to be proud of this account, which should be the best on the Internet, yes? TONY (talk) 08:53, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: I wholeheartedly agree. Please rip this article to shreds on here, if you feel it is anything less than exemplary work. -- VegitaU (talk) 17:55, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I fixed Tony's specific complaints, except for the "muscle" hijackers. Also, many of the complaints in the comments above his are covered in the sub articles. My personal opinion is that the level of detail you have chosen to cover in the article is just right. —Mattisse (Talk) 01:22, 18 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - "Tom Burnett made several phone calls to his wife beginning at 09:30:32 from rows twenty-four and twenty-five, though he was assigned a seat in row 4." According to Tony's rule: "nine/10 is the usual boundary between spelling out and rendering as a numeral, unless there's a good reason not to" - is not your sentence backwards? Or am I not understanding the spelling of numbers rule? —Mattisse (Talk) 15:00, 20 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: Is there anything outstanding that's holding this article back? I'm not sure where the NBSP and Date formatting discussion concluded at. Are there still problems with these? -- VegitaU (talk) 15:45, 22 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment: The provenience of Image:ZJarrah.JPG is unknown. Sources do not support the claim of federal/FBI authorship; why, for example, would the FBI (the claimed author) have had cause or how would it have managed to take such a photo (pre-9/11, obviously)? Use in a federal document is not, in and of itself, indicative or demonstrative of authorship. Confiscating photos, further, is a transfer of physical property rights, not intellectual property rights. We simply can't use images with unknown authorship (claiming certainty isn't good enough; verifiability, not truth, is the threshold for inclusion). The image could be commented out pending closure of the Commons deletion request or replaced with Image:Ziad Jarrah Passport Photo.jpg (which would seem to provide some illustration and, for better or worse, be much more poignant). ЭLСОВВОLД talk 14:48, 23 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reply: I'm figuring you have some proof for the claim that the photo isn't in the public domain. There are photos released by the trial that are copyrighted, but these have been clearly marked. Are you insinuating that the government marked some copyrighted and some they just said, "fuck it"? I don't think so. And how is Image:Ziad Jarrah Passport Photo.jpg a suitable substitute? Did you read the discussion above? -- Veggy (talk) 00:32, 24 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Images are presumed to be under copyright unless demonstrated otherwise. There is no burden on me to prove they aren't public domain; I can't prove a negative. I've explained why the sourcing provided is not acceptable indication of PD status. You needn't use the alternative; it was merely a suggestion. ЭLСОВВОLД talk 00:39, 24 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • From here: Information generated by the Department of Justice is in the public domain and may be reproduced, published or otherwise used without the Department’s permission. What else do you want me to do—fly out to Washington and talk to the director? -- Veggy (talk) 00:51, 24 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Look, I'm trying to find something that says it came from somewhere other than the FBI, but that's all I see.[2] (Source: FBI). -- Veggy (talk) 01:10, 24 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Alright, the image is cleared, pending the resolution of this issue. -- Veggy (talk) 17:59, 25 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding the image, it's not public domain and not the work of the FBI. On the FBI most wanted page, they note that the FBI uses those photos, but they are not necessarily public domain. I think the same goes with photos of the hijackers. That said, I think the passport photo is usable on Wikipedia under fair use. --Aude (talk) 20:33, 26 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Regarding who has copyright to the image, I would say that Ziad Jarrah had copyright. Same if I go to the local Kodak photo store or Walgreens and get a passport photo. They take the photo, but I'm paying (or hiring them) to take it. It's a work for hire and I believe that I own the copyright of my passport photos. Same situation with Jarrah or anyone else. I'm not sure about tracking down further details on the source of the image. --Aude (talk) 20:39, 26 July 2008 (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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