I am nominating this for featured list because it is a fantastic and interesting list and one of the best on the Wiki. I believe that it meets all the criteria for a featured list, and the content of the article generally only changes in response to additional launches (as expected). — InsertCleverPhraseHere(or here) 03:36, 13 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Resolved accessibility comments
Well, nominations by someone who only started editing the article the same day generally don't go so well, but I like the idea of this list, so: I'm not going to do an in-depth review yet, but just skimming I'm seeing a lot of ending sentences and paragraphs that don't have citations. That... needs to get fixed if this has a chance. Additionally, those charts in the "Launch statistics" section sure are pretty but I have a very low percentage belief that they meet WP:ACCESS at all, both in terms of "can a screen reader parse these graphs" and the first one being just shades of blue. Actually, there's a lot of ACCESS work to do- pulled up the tables in the section after that and there's no scopes being applied; the formatting of the whole thing is also just a bit... off, in addition to the seemingly random font size changes in the text. None of the tables are sortable seemingly only so that you can have pseudo-headings within the table, which I'm not buying, and I'm going to stop there.
The above issues are totally fixable: don't get discouraged if you're willing. But... there's a reason it's not usually a good idea to find a list, do a copyedit and nominate it- standards are fairly high and consistent- if you're not really, really into the list, a driveby editor usually isn't prepared to make it actually meet them. Please prove me wrong here! --PresN 04:54, 13 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Nearly all relevant statements should be backed by the existing citations, so this is probably a matter of including them in more places. The introduction doesn't have citations as it is only a summary of the sections later.
I don't know if screen readers can parse the graphs, but what is the alternative? Not including them just because a small fraction of readers cannot use them?
Sorting the table would be interesting for the orbit and launch site I guess, maybe for the mission result as well. Would be nice, but without the year headers the list gets very long and hard to navigate, and the list will only get longer.
By the way: By edit count and excluding the 7 recent edits, Insertcleverphrasehere is in the top 15 editors with the first edit in 2015.
(edit conflict)Admittedly, most of my interest in the page has been pretty stealth in the sense that I am nowhere near the most active editor to the page. However, it has been on my watchlist for quite some time and I have been following all the edits and additions to it for several months now. Users such as JFG, C-randles, N2e, and mfb, among others, are the core editors adding content to the list as launches occur. But I am very interested in the subject and keen to help the article improve.
I will have a look at the prose sections of the article, most of the sentences lacking citations should be relatively trivial to reference, even with sources already existing in the article currently (as MfB notes above). As for the colours in the graphs, they were discussed in detail here and decided that shades of blue for the falcon 9 variants (as they are variants of the same rocket design) and another colour for the falcon heavy variants was the best plan (The FH is currently slated to be olive __). I've also had a look at the graphs in a colour blindness simulator to check and make sure that colour blind people won't find them confusing Colourblind simulated image of the graphs at List of Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launches made with Coblis simulator.. Still, I am open to suggestions to improve the ACCESS of these graphs if necessary.
I'm not sure what you mean about 'scopes not being applied', if you could clarify I will work on addressing the issue. I didn't ever notice that the tables aren't sortable, as I don't see much need to sort them by anything other than chronological order. Potentially being able to sort them by Mission/Landing Success/Failure might be useful but I don't see why someone would want to. I'll ask on the talk page whether there is a consensus to remove the small font size in the tables.
Thanks for your comments, and yes, I am willing to work on the article and don't intend to 'driveby' anything. — InsertCleverPhraseHere(or here) 05:53, 13 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@PresN. I have worked on citing the prose sections to make certain that the citations are more complete (mfb also added some). I added a couple citations to the lede where these statements were not directly covered by cited material later in the article. I also changed a couple colours in the fourth graph to make the colour differentiation a bit better on that one than it was previously. — InsertCleverPhraseHere(or here) 07:01, 13 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
With Coblis, the upper left graph is actually the best one, because it relies on brightness and not on color. We can check that again with block 4 which will probably be added tomorrow. Flights by landing outcome are difficult with red-blindness and green-blindness (ground pad success=drone ship failure). --mfb (talk) 07:20, 13 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah the main focus was on making sure that it worked for people that have Anomalous trichromacy (6% of males). It is pretty difficult to make graphs with this many variables work for people who have Dichromacy (still 2% of males) without using symbols in the graphs (that's why the graph with the most variables works the worst). — InsertCleverPhraseHere(or here) 07:29, 13 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@mfb I did a ton of trial and error and managed to find a solution to the fourth graph that looks reasonably good in native colour but it also fairly easy to differentiate even with Dichromacy (making the green for ground pad success darker). I checked block 4 changes, and there is no issue with the colour blind results, however, the graphs are going above 10 results for a given year for the first time, so all the graphs are going to need a bit of tweaking (raised height) so as not to look squished. This is a separate issue however, and I'll sort it out tomorrow if someone else doesn't first. — InsertCleverPhraseHere(or here) 07:54, 13 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Glad to hear this isn't a drive-by, and it certainly appears that you're committed to the list, which is what I was "subtly" probing for. As to scopes- see Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Accessibility/Data tables tutorial#Overview of basics. The main points are that tables should have '! scope="col"' in the column header lines, and '! scope="row"' marking the lead cell of each row. As to the charts, it seems like you're putting a lot of thought into them; lacking a WP:ACCESS batman-signal I'll just ping RexxS to see if there are are concerns about the charts themselves re: screen readers, in addition to the work you've put in re: colorblindness. --PresN 02:44, 14 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
(Greetings from Wikimania 2017) To answer the question in brief, I wouldn't have concerns about those charts. As far as I can tell, the most a screen reader is likely to do with them is possibly read out the title for each block, which would be fine – the titles are sensible and informative, so they would not cause annoyance. The reason why we insist on accessibility of our content is to try, as far as possible, to make sure that disadvantaged readers can get the same information as everyone else. For example, those using screen readers can't see information presented graphically, so if that is the only place we offer that information, they lose out. That's really not fair, even if they are only a small proportion of our readership. The simplest solution is to ensure that we also present the same information textually (i.e. redundantly). In this case, I'm reasonably certain that someone can get most, if not all, of the information about the launches from the text and tables. Someone more familiar with the topic could check that for certainty, and add any omissions to the text.
If InsertCleverPhraseHere is unsure of the advice in WP:DTT, let me know and I'll help out when I get home on Tuesday. Structurally, the table in Past launches is acceptable, even with the year breaking it into sub-tables, as long as the headings are repeated (and column scoped). One thing that does need to be fixed, however, is the that the initial set of column headings should follow the "2010 to 2013" level 3 header – just as happens for all of the other sections (years) of that table. I'd recommend that the same scheme is used for the table in Future launches. Sorry if that was a bit lengthy; hope it helps anyway. Cheers --RexxS (talk) 04:05, 14 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks very much both of you for the info about DTT. I will carefully read through it and then spend some time fixing the issues you have flagged above. If I need any help I will ask and ping one or both of you. Thanks again and have fun at Wikimania. — InsertCleverPhraseHere(or here) 05:05, 14 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@RexxS OK. I have sorted out the column scoping (I think). Also the issue with the "2010 to 2013" header was fixed. PresN said that we should do row scoping as well, but I'm not sure how so do this (or if it is even possible or advisable) given the use of rowspan and colspan with the mission description box (the lower box for each entry). I think I might just add a summary to each table indicating that a short mission description is given for each entry (a screen reader should read out the description after all the other stuff in the entry anyway, so it shouldn't be a big deal). Still not sure about sortable tables, some kinks to work out that we are discussing on the talk page. — InsertCleverPhraseHere(or here) 06:06, 17 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. Adding the column scopes helps ensure that many screen readers can have the column header read out when navigating around the table. It allows them to move around up, down, left, right, rather than being stuck with reading out just from left-to-right, top-to-bottom. When navigating around the table, they can choose to hear the column and row headers for each cell – something like "3; Payload; Dragon demo flight C2+" instead of just hearing "Dragon demo flight C2+", so it helps orientate their position in the table. It would help if you added the scope="row" to each of the row headers (preferably a unique value like the Fight Number). #2010_to_2013 This is what the 2010 to 2013 section looks like with scoped row headers; and this is what it would look like with the "plainrowheaders" style applied to turn off the bold and centring (just the background colour changes to show it is a header). I don't think it's essential in this case, because the Flight Number isn't a particularly good index, but it's better than nothing. However, adding the row headers and scopes can improve the experience somewhat for some screen readers, so it's probably worthwhile. Hope that helps. --RexxS (talk) 16:30, 17 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, I think the accessibility concerns are all taken care of now- capping them. I did have one last unrelated thought- It's a little odd having the title as "Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy", especially as there were only 5 Falcon 1 launches. I get why- the Falcon Heavy was originally the Falcon 9 Heavy, but have you considered merging them all together into one "List of SpaceX Falcon launches"? If you don't want to go that route, I think that it would be helpful to mention in the lead where you have "The Falcon Heavy is derived from the Falcon 9." that it used to be named the Falcon 9 Heavy. --PresN 20:34, 17 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
We had multiple discussions about which rockets to include. F1+F9+FH together, all three separate, or the way it is now? We concluded that the current way is the most reasonable. F1 is a completely different rocket, while F9 and FH share most of their hardware. I don't know if mentioning historic names helps in the article. --mfb (talk) 21:52, 17 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
We have discussed adding the falcon 1 and concluded that it wasn't appropriate. I will try to work into the lede that the falcon heavy is essentially a falcon 9 with two extra falcon 9 first stages as extra side boosters. As a pertinent example, the upcoming falcon heavy flight scheduled in a couple months uses two previously flown falcon 9 first stages as side boosters. — InsertCleverPhraseHere(or here) 13:25, 18 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@PresN, I have modified the bit on the Falcon Heavy in the lede to make it clear to readers that the Falcon Heavy central rocket core is just a strengthened Falcon 9 (using similar wording to that used in the Falcon Heavy lede). This should address this issue satisfactorily without needing historical names. As an additional note, we have decided against making a sortable table for the list of launches (see talk page). The use of small text in the table has been culled slightly so far, and is still being discussed for the landing column. — InsertCleverPhraseHere(or here) 23:23, 18 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Awesome, thanks. Also, note that, uh, everything that is covered by note B needs to get sourced or dropped. --PresN 01:30, 19 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@PresNWe also decided on a change to the formatting of the 'Landing outcome' column which still uses small text, but makes the use of the small text more appropriate and less 'random'. So that is done as well. Never mind, still some discussion to be had. — InsertCleverPhraseHere(or here) 12:15, 19 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@PresN We are now pretty much done with the 'landing outcome' column as well, though the consensus on what style to pick took a while only minor changes from the current version are likely (or none at all). Is there anything else that is a concern? — InsertCleverPhraseHere(or here) 09:52, 23 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
It seems like all the of the issues raised have been resolved. Is there anything else that needs addressing or can we move forward with this one? — InsertCleverPhraseHere(or here) 23:45, 1 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Insertcleverphrasehere: FLCs require substantive reviews ending in supports from multiple editors before they can be promoted, I'm afraid (and a source review). Since I've been pretty involved in this one, I'll give it a full review soon. --PresN 01:31, 2 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, sorry about that. I haven't been through this process before. Just not seen much happening for a while and was wondering. Thanks for your help. — InsertCleverPhraseHere(or here) 09:38, 2 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@PresN and RexxS: The article has been stable for a while. Any chance for you to move the review forward or pass the buck to other volunteers? — JFGtalk 15:14, 23 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Hi JFG I wasn't aware that I was holding up the review. I thought that I was simply answering a question asked. If you want to know whether I think all accessibilty concerns have been met, I believe they have to the best of one's ability. I mean, it's never going to be perfect, but Insertcleverphrasehere has done a lot to improve the accessibility, and I certainly wouldn't suggest it should not be promoted on that score. Does that help? --RexxS (talk) 19:00, 23 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I think we are waiting on other reviewers to step forward. FLC is a bit backlogged at the moment, and although this article is in the 'older nominations' section, it is not even close to the bottom yet. The WIKI cup is on at the moment, so I suspect that might have something to do with the increased backlog. I also suspect that most reviewers are a bit reluctant to do a full source review on this article, as I am pretty sure that this one is one of the longer articles at FLC at the moment. It will come, but I suspect we will have to wait till it falls to the bottom of the list. Thats ok, there's no WP:DEADLINE. — InsertCleverPhraseHere(or here) 21:03, 23 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Sure RexxS, I didn't mean we were waiting on you, no worries. Thanks for your help in sorting out the accessibility issues. — JFGtalk 21:12, 23 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Comments epic piece of work... some quick notes before a proper review.
We don't start featured lists with "This is a list of..."
I would move the image up to the start of the article.
Consider collapsing the TOC down to just level one headings, All that whitespace is distracting.
"and there have been a total of 41 launches" needs time-framing, i.e. As of September 2017...
"39 missions were ..." don't start sentences with a number.
occurred on June 4, 2010 and" took place, and comma after 2010.
Lots of short, sometimes single-sentence paragraphs, looks untidy.
Convert units consistently throughout (e.g. you have "9 meters" without a conversion).
"October 7, 2012 at 8:35 PM EST. " comma after 2012 and see MOS:TIME for format of the time.
"within 4 days after" within four days of
"the 8th time" eighth.
Use full years, not '12, '13 etc.
"cubesat" should be "CubeSat".
Why empty cells for some of the "payload mass" entries?
Not convinced those flag icons are of use, particularly without the name of the country.
Inline referencing appears to be very sporadic, e.g. why are "September 21, 2014, 05:52[53]" and "2,216 kg (4,885 lb)[85]" singled out for inline refs whereas those same entries aren't cited in the lines above ?
Be consistent with date formats in the references.
More once we're making progress on this lot. The Rambling Man (talk) 10:46, 25 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your comments. Some initial replies:
I rephrased the first sentence.
Moving the image up would create even more whitespace. We could add another image there, however. Added another image now. --mfb (talk) 01:33, 9 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I think the direct navigation to individual years is very useful, especially with the current (and increasing) length of the table.
Added time (with date as the launch rate exceeds 1/month).
39: Rephrased.
Used "took place". It is a separate sentence now.
I don't see a nice way to reduce the number of short paragraphs without merging separate topics or adding less important information (to make the paragraph longer), but let's see what others say.
Converted 9 m, 780 km and 6457 kg, I hope I got all. A few missions split up the payload into separate pieces in the text, adding conversions for every piece would make the description very cluttered.
Added comma after 2012 and converted the time to 24 hour time, consistent with the rest of the article.
4->four done
8th->eighth done
Full years: Fits for now, changed.
cubesat->CubeSat done.
The first two missions were demonstration missions, they didn't have a payload in the conventional sense (apart from a few kilograms of secondary satellites). For Dragon missions we quote the payload in the Dragon capsule, but these missions tested the capsule. Found a reference for the payload of the third mission and added it.
Flags: I'll leave that to others.
References: The references differ in their coverage, so different launches have different combinations of references. If a reference covers the whole table entry we don't repeat it in every column.
Found 7 deviating date formats and changed them to "Month day, yyyy".
--mfb (talk) 13:03, 25 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@The Rambling Man: Do you have further suggestions for improvements? --mfb (talk) 20:09, 19 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
No consensus to keep flags; they have been removed — JFGtalk 05:17, 22 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Re flags: Hover or click shows the country name. I would have thought that sufficient, but others may think differently. crandles (talk) 15:38, 25 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
There's no hover on a tablet or phone, and clicking away from an article merely to get a name is just what we don't want readers to have to do. Add to that, our articles are not infrequently printed out and paper doesn't allow hover or click, which is why we shouldn't rely on links to explain acronyms or icons. Our best work ought to be cognisant of all of the different audiences. --RexxS (talk) 18:42, 25 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Flags are usually well-understood without country names. If a reader is curious about an obscure country flag, they would click or tap. Flags were inserted in this table to highlight the geographic diversity of SpaceX customers, an unusual feature in the space industry. Adding explicit country names would look overly redundant. — JFGtalk 20:45, 25 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I wouldn't support adding the country names, as this puts undue emphasis on a relatively trivial feature. The flags are not essential, but they are nice to have. The fact that they have poor accessibility via page readers and mobile users is not really an issue, as they are not essential for the understanding of the content of the page. As it is they are low enough impact to justify their inclusion as a nice looking but non-essential feature. — InsertCleverPhraseHere(or here) 20:50, 25 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Unfortunately, that's the reasoning that is used to justify every example of a failure to meet WCAG 1.1. There's no excuse for failing to provide information to any group who can't access the info, when that information could be presented as text. The country names could easily be accessible to everybody, and highlighting the geographic diversity of SpaceX customers could be achieved for all users quite simply. Not doing that because icons look prettier than text is not a sustainable argument. --RexxS (talk) 21:25, 25 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The problem is that I don't think we will have consensus to include country names as text, due to the undue emphasis on a trivial detail (we would probably need a separate column, or it would be awkwardly tacked into the existing customer column). The flags only marginally got consensus to be included in the first place, and that was only because they were low-impact visually. For page readers, I suppose I could edit in a note that will read out the country name without displaying anything else visually (a hidden comment). If this is a failable criteria due to mobile alone, then I suggest removing the flags altogether instead. This seems a little nonsensical though, as surely a minor benefit to most users is better than nothing for anybody. IAR anybody? — InsertCleverPhraseHere(or here) 21:44, 25 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I'm very sympathetic to the problems of generating consensus to improve accessibility, which is why I rarely push the issue, and I don't blame you. If it's any help, there's no need to add any hidden text; the flag icons already have alt text set to the country name, so that screen readers hear the name. Unusually, the disadvantaged group in this case is those who print out articles, who get less information than blind visitors. (Honestly though, did you recognise the flag of Thailand or Luxembourg? Imagine that printed out in black and white!). Anyway, TRM's point is valid: I'm not convinced either, but I don't think it's a big deal as long as you're aware of what the effect actually is, and you've done your best. Cheers --RexxS (talk) 21:56, 25 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
It was Lux that did it for me, I thought "Oooh, Holland are involved..." OOPS. The Rambling Man (talk) 22:03, 25 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Wait until somebody squints over Monaco, Singapore, Indonesia and Poland. Seriously, it's good that screen readers are taken care of, and who prints the 'pedia anyway? I agree with Clever Phrase that offering "a minor benefit to most users is better than nothing for anybody." — JFGtalk 22:20, 25 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with "a minor benefit to most users is better than nothing for anybody" as well. Someone who prints the page doesn't have all the Wikilinks either, and the page stops updating if you print it. --mfb (talk) 22:43, 25 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Not all of the launches are made by national entities. In my view, the national flags of nation-state governments should only be used to represent government customers. They should not reflect the "Customer" or the many payloads who are launched by private companies. Private companies are not creatures of the nation-state they reside in, except in a few countries.
Now if we did not try to munge the entire row into some sort of national flag symbol, the flag icon might make sense if we had a column for "Country that issued the launch license", as that would always be a nation state. But using the national flag of a country for some private payload doesn't really make sense; we ought to reserve flags for government payloads, and not use them for private payloads.
Or just get rid of the flag icons completely, and not put them on any payloads. Cheers. N2e (talk)
Depends what you think is the purpose of the flag. If you think the flag represents national sovereign ownership then it appears wrong to use for a private company. However, if you think it is there to represent geographical distribution of customers then it makes sense to use flag with private company. Is this possible misinterpretation of meaning an issue? I suggest no: if you see Japanese flag with JSat Group or something similar to indicate a private company/group then it is fairly immediately obvious the flag does not represent national sovereign ownership and is just a geographical distribution indicator.
Most people will recognise a few flags but not all of them. Where people don't recognise a flag but immediately next to it the customer says Thaicom or BulgariaSat or Turkmenistan NSA then there is little need to look up the flag. I think this reduces the problem and I agree that some use to some people is better than nothing for anyone. crandles (talk) 12:18, 26 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
WP:MOSFLAG says to use the flags only to represent the country or nation. So they work if the payload is a government payload of the country. They simply should not be used to represent private payloads 'cause they happen to have been assembled in some particular country. The list isn't ready to be a Featured list with the overuse, and inappropriate use, of these flag symbols. N2e (talk) 02:40, 27 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Many people disagree with an absolutist interpretation of MOS:FLAG. Spaceflight articles routinely use flags to represent the customer of satellites, see 2017 in spaceflight and friends. I understand your personal objection, but I disagree that flags should only apply to satellites launched by nation-states. — JFGtalk 14:36, 27 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Removed I have removed the flags. There was not a strong consensus for inclusion at the start, and there is vocal opposition to the idea of flags alone without written country names, as well as opposition to flags for non-governmental entities. Does appear to be in violation of WP:MOSFLAG ("Accompany flags with country names", and MOSFLAG also says "If the use of flags in a list, table or infobox makes it unclear, ambiguous or controversial, it is better to remove the flags even if that makes the list, table or infobox inconsistent with others of the same type where no problems have arisen." There seems to be consensus that flags with country names as well is undue for a trivial aspect and not what we want. With no way to reconcile these issues, the best option seems to be to remove the flags. — Insertcleverphrasehere(or here) 06:01, 1 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
It seems there are no objections to my removal of the flags. As this discussion seems complete, I am capping it. — Insertcleverphrasehere(or here) 22:58, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Insertcleverphrasehere: Reading the discussion above again, I see that most people agree that listing flags is a net positive for most readers, even those using assistive technology. The only opposing argument comes from N2e who contends that flags should only represent national entities. While I understand this position, there are plenty of pages which use flags as a designation of origin, irrespective of government. I would ask N2e if he is amenable to accepting the same logic here as on the 2017 in spaceflight chronicles. And I'm un-hatting the discussion for readability. Will ping all participants on the talk page for a quick survey. — JFGtalk 07:58, 9 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@PresN and The Rambling Man: Looks like all of the issues you pointed out have been resolved. What do we need to do to move forward with the review and hopefully reach Featured List status soon? — JFGtalk 05:21, 22 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
For this to reach FL, we'll need to see some reviewers supporting the list's promotion. There's been a good amount of reviewing so far, but no support. We can't simply assume that reviewers who do not declare their support meant to; in this case, it's likely that PresN and TRM were seeking to leave themselves the option of closing the FLC when the time comes (they'd have a conflict if they supported). You may neutrally ask regular FLC reviewers for input if you really want to get things moving; just don't ask anyone to support your list, as that would cross the line into full-on canvassing. Giants2008 (Talk) 15:37, 1 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Actual review by PresN
The lead is a bit choppy. I'd move the second sentence ("The versions of the rocket are...") to the start of the last paragraph, and then combine the remainder of the 1st paragraph with the 2nd paragraph. Also, start that moved sentence as "The rockets in the Falcon 9 family are..." instead.
"The rocket experienced "a little bit of roll at liftoff" as Ken Bowersox from SpaceX put it." -> "Ken Bowersox, Vice President of SpaceX, described the launch as having "a little bit of roll at liftoff"."
Additionally, you should describe what "roll" is in this context, as you mention it several times in this paragraph
"a single Dragon C2+ mission,[14] on condition that all Demo 2 milestones" - on the condition
It might be helpful if you mention what launch # the "notable" missions are; you mention the 1st and 2nd, but stop afterward.
There's some spots in the launch table that are missing citations, namely:
end of launch 23
end of launch 25
end of launch 26 (also, every time you link the flight 26 article you mis-capitalize the F in flight)
I like the "(more details above)" in launch 19; that should be present on the other "special" launches
"when firm planning dates are in place, and reliably sourced" - reliably sourced is an internal WP thing, and should not be in prose- move it to a hidden comment if the point is to deter randos from adding details without a source
"(every two months)" - I get what you mean by these tags, but I don't think there's much reason to call this out when you already list the launch months anyway
There's a "[needs update]" tag in April 2018
"Q2, 2018", etc. - no comma on the quarters, you treat them like you do months
Not doing a source review yet, but take a glance through yourself; off-hand I noticed that ref 167 is missing the publication date, 170 has the url spacelaunchreport.com as the work, rather than the actual site name (Space Launch Report), and 171 italicized NASA as a work instead of a publisher That was just a 10 second skim of a chunk in the middle; there's likely many more inconsistencies (especially with 300+ references!)
This list is pretty sharp, lets try to not let it linger any longer... --PresN 22:33, 9 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you very much.
implemented the first two points as suggested.
added a sentence and a link about roll
added "the"
added the flight numbers to all notable missions
took care of the citations for the mentioned flights. Capital F seems to be preferred for "Flight xx", I used that everywhere for displayed text now.
Added "more details above" to more flights. I left out the flights mentioned in "First landings on drone ship" and "First launch and landing of a reused first stage" as these sections are about the boosters not about the primary missions, and "loss of Amos 6" because the linked main article is the better reference here. If someone prefers having these links, feel free to add them.
removed "and reliably sourced"
Every two months means launch delays will shift everything, but as we keep the list updated anyway... removed it.
[needs update]: The in-flight abort test schedule is a bit awkward. Originally the first uncrewed orbital test was planned for February and the abort test (with the same capsule) for two months later - April. Now the orbital test moved to April, therefore the abort test will move as well - but there is no source quoting an actual month, and "probably around June" doesn't fit well in any quarter either. I changed the date to 2018 and sorted it under June as most likely launch order.
removed commas from quarters.
Fixed the three references you mentioned for now, with 319 321 that will need more work. Reference 170 had the parameter "website", used "work" now.
tl;dr: Implemented all, apart from the source review and maybe some "more details above" no action items left. --mfb (talk) 08:39, 10 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support - lets get you an actual support here instead of just comments. Source review is typically the last thing done before a nomination is promoted, so I'll hold off until we get a couple more supports. --PresN 15:31, 10 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
If it's worth anything, I'm happy to add my support, as the nominator has met all of the concerns I raised about accessibility and MOS:FLAG. I agree that a source review would be helpful – an immediate glance at ref #2, for example, shows that it's giving the publisher as "Space.com" (which is the website name), whereas I think the publisher is probably Purch. I won't quibble if I'm wrong about that, but I think |website=Space.com would still be better. --RexxS (talk) 19:20, 10 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for supporting the nomination! The references use a mixture of work=, publisher= and sometimes others (and sometimes none of them). I don't know what is preferable, I left that as it is for now and hope that someone else looks into this. Meanwhile I took care of dates: consistent format of Month dd, yyyy, checked sources without accessdate and added it (Twitter and Youtube sometimes don't have it but their links should be extremely stable), added date where applicable. --mfb (talk) 06:49, 11 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Resolved comments from Giants2008 (Talk) 23:08, 18 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Comments – Interesting list. Here are several comments from my read-through, which I enjoyed:
COTS demo missions: "included two more test flights Demo 2 and Demo 3". Feels like this sentence needs some more punctuation before the Demos. It feels long without the punctuation.
CRS-1: The abbreviation ISS could be spelled out for the benefit of readers, with the abbreviated form in parenthesis afterward.
Loss of CRS-7 mission: Once the above comment is resolved, the full ISS link here can be removed, and the abbreviation can be used.
Not doing a full source review since PresN has indicated he's got it covered, but I did notice that RT News was used in ref 39. As that source has been questioned numerous times at RSN and elsewhere, I'd like to see something more reliable in an article at FLC. Because that cite covers the Amos-6 explosion, I'd imagine that this is doable. Giants2008 (Talk) 22:43, 16 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Provisional support – One of the comments was still outstanding, but I decided to clean that bit up myself to move the process along. I didn't look at the sources much, but the rest of the list appears in fine shape to me. Assuming PresN signs off on the sourcing, this can be considered a full support. Giants2008 (Talk) 23:08, 18 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Ok that is weird, I had definitely drafted a fix for the abbreviation at one point, I must have failed to save it for some reason. Thanks for resolving that. — Insertcleverphrasehere(or here) 20:36, 20 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@PresN: What is the procedure for a source review? --mfb (talk) 00:14, 8 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Basically just wait for someone to get to it; it's usually pretty fast but I do most of them and I've been busy for a few weeks. Given that you knew there were a lot of problems with the formatting, though, I'm a little annoyed that they've been left alone. Here we go!
Good news first: I'm not seeing a lot of unreliable sources besides Gunter's Space Page, and spotchecks didn't show any problems. Can you explain how Gunter's Space Page is an RS?
Bad news: the formatting here is all over the place. The main rule of formatting references is less to follow a standard and more to be consistent. Which this isn't. It's a bit of a mess. I'm going to list out here some general trends that this list is following, and then call out instances where it falls off of that:
This list generally links works in every reference, not just the first. (except when it just doesn't link at all)
This list does not use publishers- it says the website/magazine, but not the publishing company
Except ref 14 has a bunch of extra stuff not found anywhere else
it does mention the platform in refs 7 and 86 as if it was the work
ref 49 has a publisher
This list uses M-D-Y date formatting
You flip the date format in ref 193
This list does not italicize websites that are not also magazines
This is wildly inconsistent. Just making all instances of Space.com and SpaceNews non-italicized would help a lot, but every "website" should be fixed.
On the flip side, you don't italicize the magazine Astronomy Now in ref 32
Other:
For some reason ref 29 has NYT as a magazine?
As mentioned above, use the website name, not its url. Space.com is actually it's name (note the capital S), as is NASASpaceFlight.com (note the capital F), but forum.nasaspaceflight.com (ref 185) is not, floridatoday.com (ref 202) is not, www.spaceflightinsider.com (ref 220) is not, cnbc.com (ref 222) is not, etc. Do a ctrl-F for ".com".
I'm going to take a stab at fixing some of these formatting issues this afternoon, since this has dragged on so long, but I'd like it if y'all did some too. --PresN 18:56, 8 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@PresN: Many thanks for the source review. I have no time to act upon your remarks now, but I can at least vouch for Gunter's Space Page as a reliable source, despite being self-published. Gunter Krebs maintains a very detailed database of spacecraft, rockets and launches, which is considered authoritative by Wikiproject Spaceflight and included in the generic references for spaceflight timelines at Template:TLS-R. — JFGtalk 22:32, 8 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Alright, did a bunch of formatting tweaks. One more potential non-RS: to discuss before it's done: "Launch Photography". --PresN 22:54, 8 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Probably not a good answer, but Launch Photography is often first reporting changes and then other sites report the same. I believe people use the site's info to make journeys to view and photograph launches, but I am not sure if I can find any RS to indicate this. Maybe I could find some blog comments if this is needed. Also thank you for all the ref fixes, sorry we didn't get to these. crandles (talk) 00:28, 9 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the review. Looks like I missed a few dates. I searched for ".com|" and ".com ", just two instances left, and in both cases it is part of the name (Spaceflight101.com, Infoespacial.com). I moved more references away from website=, I hope that was right. In one case (National Environmental Satellite Data and Information Service) I don't know how to handle that as we have a separate publisher put in. --mfb (talk) 02:52, 9 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I've looked closer at what you're using Launch Photography to reference. Most of them are referencing the place/time of launch, and I'm willing to give it a pass on that- a timestamped photo is what you're really citing, even if it's on someone's personal website. You're also using it to cite 3 future dates (January 2018) which... they cannot be a reliable source for, because then you're really just citing Cooper's recitation of facts he got somewhere else. You'll need a different source for those 3 cites- I note that spaceflight now has the date for the one I checked, though not the time. --PresN 02:49, 10 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Removed from future dates replacing all with spaceflight now. Lost a couple of times.crandles (talk) 09:53, 10 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Closing note: This candidate has been promoted, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FLC/ar, and leave the {{featured list candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through.
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
Done — InsertCleverPhraseHere (or here) 18:35, 17 August 2017 (UTC)
