Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Peer review/HMAS Melbourne (R21)

HMAS Melbourne (R21)

I've just finished a massive expansion of this article. I want to start the ball rolling towards Featured Article status. So tell me people, what's screaming for a fixing? -- saberwyn 06:12, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

UPDATES by saberwyn:

Tweaks of grammar and phrasing have been made per the points below: I hope I'm getting the right stuff fixed. Any assistance from other editors would be aprreciated, because I wrote almost all of the text that is present and may have a blindspot covering some of the more glaring errors. The section on the Evans collision is being worked through in my userspace (User:Saberwyn/HMAS Melbourne (R21)/Evans collision‎), and Maralia will perform a progress review of this in the near future. Are there any other parts of the article that need looking at?? -- saberwyn 10:05, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

An automated peer review has been run. See below

An updated collision section has been inserted into the article, because its better than what was there, but it still needs a lot of work. Are there any other parts of the article that need working on, or should this peer review be wrapped up a new one opened when the collision section is comepletely fixed? -- saberwyn 07:07, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Maralia and I have sorted out our concerns regarding the Evans collision section, by trimming down the material on the investigation to a single paragraph, and leaving the detailed accusations of bias for the subarticle. Aside from the comment on the need for a prose tense copyedit (which will be a continual work in progress), I believe I have answered all of TomStar's concerns to the best of my ability. Unless there are any other points than need fixing, I intend to archive this peer review at the end of the week and begin an A-class review for the article. -- saberwyn 06:46, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

TomStar81

I didn't take the time to do a thurough read threw (that will come later today), but two things got my attention right quick:

• Decide on a tense. I spotted two instances of past-to-present tense in the same section, it needs to be all present or all past
  • Attempting to fix any parts I find. Can you give an example of one of the more glaring occurances of the problem so I know I'm working on the right thing? -- saberwyn 10:28, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
• Do not start a sentence with a number. Case in point:"82 of Voyager's crew were killed, and two Royal Commissions were held to investigate the events."
  • Do you mean, do not start with a numeral (which will be easy to fix), or do not start with a number (at the mo I can see no other way to restructure that sentance). -- saberwyn 10:28, 28 January 2008 (UTC) DONE

Sorry for my extremely long delay in getting back to you, school work has proven more difficult now that I am an official upper classman, and keeping pace with demand has required some absence from here on my part. First off let me say that you have done an outstanding job with this article, it reads well and it is well sourced. You are to be commended for your efforts to bring the article this far, but I have a few additional suggestions/clarifications for you below:

• You have a tendancy to switch tense in the article, which is bad; an article should be written all in the present tense or all in the past tense. In this case in particular I would recommend siding with the past tense becuase the ship herself no longer exists. A case in point: First paragraph, second sentence: "Launched in 1945 and operating until 1982, she was the third and final conventional aircraft carrier[I] to serve in the Royal Australian Navy (RAN)."
  • I will be honest, I don't know the first thing about what tenses are and how to properly use them. I just write the way I've learned/taught myself to. To use your example, "Launched in 1945 and operating until 1982" just feels right to me compared to "Launched in 1945 and operated until 1982". Given my lack of knowledge, I think the best I can do is hand the article over to the League of Copyeditors or somebody else, and hope they can make sense of and fix my mess. In progress/requires further comment
    • Fair enough, the Leauge of Copyediters would probably be better suited to deal with that issue. As one who can't spell I can relate to writing the way one learns/teaches oneself to. I'll leave it to you to find a good copyediter.
• The lead sentence in the third paragraph reads "During her career, Melbourne never fired a shot in anger, only having peripheral, non-combat roles in the Indonesia-Malaysia confrontation and the Vietnam War.", but I think it might flow better if it read "Melbourne never fired a shot in anger during her career, having only peripheral, non-combat roles in the Indonesia-Malaysia confrontation and the Vietnam War."
  • Done
• We have articles for ship naming and launching and other related ship cermonies that you may want to link to from this article for the sake of allowing unfamilar readers a chance to discover the answers to their question without having to ask someone for the answer. If you do decide to link to the articles I would recommend linking from the Construction and acquisition section.
  • Could you slap that link in where you feel it is most appropriate? Requires further comment
    • Will do. I see about getting to it tomarrow.
• As noted below, make sure to use non-breaking spaces with regards to numerical values.
  • I've used non-breaking spaces in every spot I can find that needs one. Done
• We wouldn't happen to articles for the radar sets on site, would we? If we did it would be a good idea to link to them.
  • I've anchor-linked to List of World War II British naval radar for the 277Q and 293Q radars in the Weapons and Systems section, but not the infobox as yet. None of the other radars have articles, or articles I can find. Requires further comment
    • To be fair, I have been trying to locate enough information to create a radar page for the Iowas, and so far have found little if anything of substantive value. The explination I got from a former USN Fire Control Technition is that alot of the technical stuff from back in the day remains classified becuase the same basic principles apply to modern radar.
• Based on what I have seen in the article your information and the sorcing are good enough to lay the groundwork for a rebuilding of the class page. It maight be a good idea to try that so you can break out some of the information from the Construction and acquisition, Design, and Armament section and there subsections to help reduce the length of the Melborne page; at present your Melborne page weighs in at 85 kbs, which is almost the length of my Iowa class battleship page in its current form (presently at 87 kbs). Long pages are harder for our dialup user to get to, so I strongly recommend going with this option.
  • I could farm some of the material out to Majestic class aircraft carrier, Colossus class aircraft carrier, and Aircraft carriers of the Royal Australian Navy. However, the problem I see is that (to my eye), most, if not all, of the material present falls into one of two categories
    1. The material is specific to Melbourne. This is mainly for the technical material, as although the six ships of the Majestic class were identical in design during the early phases in construction, the fact that construction was suspended completely after the war, then restarted at different times and completed with different end-goals and for different navies mean that (in my opinion), the Majestic class consists of five unique ships and one pile of scrap metal (Leviathan was never completed). Just by looking throught the Wikipedia articles here, I cannot see a consistent post-launching configuration for any of the ships for any of the normally common components - radar sets, weapons outfits, etc. Only half the class had angled flight decks. There appears to be a lot more variation between the configuration of the Majestics than the Iowas, and without going into a detailed study of each of the other five carriers, I wouldn't know what are the common elements to list in the class article.
    2. I believe the material is important to understand the history of Melbourne. The exaple that comes to my mind is the acquisition of the two Australian carriers. I've tried to trim down some of the material, but this is a key component of the ship's history, and should be dealt with as completely as possible here.
  • On the matter of being oversized, I will try to trim the article down, but I don't know how much smaller I can get it without ommitting any more information. I've trimmed one or two kb off the article by tightening up the wording and removing some of the more excessive details (i.e the latter section of the article contained a lot of lists of accompanying ships while the earlier sections had none, and a lot of these lists have been removed). If a blanket revert is required or desired, this is the version of the article prior to the cutting down. Requires further comment
    • Fair enough. Very long articles are permitted provided there be a good reason to keep them instead of carving them up, and it sounds like you have a good reason to keep yours big. On the issue of trimming: all articles could do with a little trimming (even FAs), but don't trim so much that you create a train wreck. If there is a good reason for having info in the article then so be it.
• Are any of the exercise names metioned in the history part annual? If so we may have an article on them, and if not could you try and find out what the exercise was for?
  • By my understanding, most of the were multi-naval training exercises. I will try to find names and wikilinks for as many as possible. In progress None of the exercise names currently in the article or in Gillett's HMAS Melbourne - 25 Years have an accompanying article, and there are no details as to what the specific activities of these training exercises were. Requires further comment
    • Thats ok. I was just curious, so I won't hold this one against you. I know sometimes exercises have a specific thrust, like the one we have at Fort Bliss by annually, and was curious if any of those were perhaps similar in nature.
• Consider adding a commons link if any additional images of the carrier can be found there.
  • Link to a commons category of images is located in the Footnotes section. If you feel it would be better elsewhere, feel free. Done

Otherwise, as noted a bove, it looks good. Well done! TomStar81 (Talk) 04:47, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Maralia

I've given it a cursory copyedit, tweaked the reflist to columns, removed a redundant category, alphabetized the books list, and moved the last image up to avoid large whitespace. Overall, this is well written and thorough. A few issues:

• It needs a more comprehensive copyedit. Particular issues include semicolons vs colons, slight overuse of passive verbs, and overcapitalization of officialese like 'government' and 'squadron'.
  • Copyedit is a work in progress, due to my proximity to the text as it was written all assistance to get what I miss is appreciated. -- saberwyn 10:28, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
• Is the construction "HMA Ships x and y" actually used by/for/about RAN ships? The capitalization of 'Ships' in it makes sense, but it looks wrong.
  • I have seen the form used several times before (see this search for "HMA Ships" at the RAN's official website [1]). -- saberwyn 10:28, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
    • Noted. You learn something every day :) Maralia (talk) 16:55, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
• I'm really not satisfied with the Evans collision section. The primary source is a book written by the spouse of the accused. Criticism of the USN's participation in the joint board may be wholly warranted here, but the sources and presentation are questionable. If criticism is rampant, plenty of non-COI sources (and US rebuttals) should be available; if not, then this section suffers from undue weight.

I agree. I knew that this was going to be the weakest section going in to this. The text in question is used as a resource by other Australian naval historians (Tom Frame in Pacific Partners and David Stevens in The Royal Australian Navy) I will attempt to reacquire these books from the library and see how many sources I can change. I will admit that I have not looked too hard for other sources (this was one of the first sections finished, and I was too concerned with filling out the rest of the ships history to ensure that this and the other collision section did not unbalance the article), and the ones I did find focused only on the events of the collision and how the Americans were punished, the latter being more appropriate to the Melbourne-Evans collision article. I'll try to find some time to put it on the slab and tinker with it, but I cannot promise much at this moment in time. -- saberwyn 10:28, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

It's not surprising that 'Australian naval historians' use her book ;) I haven't been able to come up with any US-perspective books about the collision. I did, however, find vast quantities of evidence and documentation from the joint board inquiry, at [2]. Of particular interest are the final two pages ("Responsibility for Collision") of [3], which places the majority of blame on USN personnel. Indeed, 3 USN staff were court-martialed, with at least 2 found guilty of dereliction of duty, while Stevenson was the only RAN staff court-martialed, and he was "acquitted with honor". [4] Also note [5] which gives some USN commentary on the proceedings, including "King [...] is to be complimented for the outstanding investigation conducted under his direction. It is thorough and complete in all respects." Maralia (talk) 16:55, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

From the looks of things, the second weblink is an exerpt from the Board's findings, while the third and fourth weblinks are identical reports sent up the chain of command. The first weblink does not want to work for me. First up, I dislike using primary sources unpublished sources, wouldn't have a clue how to cite them properly if used, and trying to make sense of them smacks a little of original research to me.

In other news, I've started a rewrite of the section in my userspace I've already substituted in references for Frame's Pacific Partners, Bastock's Australia's Ships of War and Gillett's HMAS Melbourne - 25 Years. Unsubstituted material is underlined, and I'll be working to clear this away as I get hold of more texts. -- saberwyn 10:13, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

As an update on the whole Evans issue, the main problem is that there are only two published sources I have been able to identify that deal specifically with the subject of the collision and the Board of Inquiry: the book by Jo Stevenson (or its previous version) and an article by Anthony Vincent in Quadrant magazine (which I have been unable to acquire a copy of as yet). Both would be considered conflict-of-interest sources: the former is written by the wife of Melbourne's captain at the time, and the latter by the RAN lawyer kicked out of the Inquiry by Admiral King. Tom Frame has a chapter on the incident which is more or less reproduced across three of his books, and is manipulated or shoehorned in to meet the point of the book (general history of the RAN, the Voyager collision, or RAN-USN relations). All other Australian sources are short paragraphs or sections in general histories, or are reproduced or sourced from one or a combination of these three main writings. The few American-authored sources I can find are short journal articles or book paragraphs that deal almost exclusively with the collision. Yes, the BOI happened, but there is no detail as to the events of the BOI... it just happened. -- saberwyn 05:39, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for a good read. The Evans section is the only reason I didn't immediately bump the article to B class, and A class is only that plus a copyedit away, in my opinion. Maralia (talk) 19:58, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Automated

The following suggestions were generated by a semi-automatic javascript program, and might not be applicable for the article in question.

• Per Wikipedia:Manual of Style (numbers), there should be a non-breaking space -   between a number and the unit of measurement. For example, instead of 000 yards, use 000 yards, which when you are editing the page, should look like: 000 yards.^[?]
  • Done - the only remaining occurances are in the wikilink [[Bofors 40 mm gun]] (which would break the wikilink) and in the Evans collision section (and has been fixed in the rewrite)
• Per WP:WIAFA, this article's table of contents (ToC) may be too long – consider shrinking it down by merging short sections or using a proper system of daughter pages as per Wikipedia:Summary style.^[?]
  • Not done - At the moment, the only way I can see to shorten the TOC is to have events from 1969 to 1982 lumped into one awfully massive section. I am not willing to do that.
• This article may need to undergo summary style, where a series of appropriate subpages are used. For example, if the article is United States, then an appropriate subpage would be History of the United States, such that a summary of the subpage exists on the mother article, while the subpage goes into more detail.^[?]
  • Kinda done - Summary-style subarticles (actually just cuts and pastes of the appropriate section standing by and ready for detailed expansion) have been created for the Melbourne-Voyager collision and Melbourne-Evans collision. I do not believe any other section would be appropriate for a subarticle at this time.
• Please make the spelling of English words consistent with either American or British spelling, depending upon the subject of the article. Examples include: armour (B) (American: armor), harbour (B) (American: harbor), metre (B) (American: meter), defense (A) (British: defence), defence (B) (American: defense), organise (B) (American: organize), criticise (B) (American: criticize), isation (B) (American: ization), signalling (B) (American: signaling), travelled (B) (American: traveled), kerb (B) (American: curb), program (A) (British: programme).
  • Done - Pearl Harbor always gets me in these articles. Australian/British is Harbour, but the proper name for the Hawaii base drops the u per American spelling and triggers this comment. Apart from this, the spelling is 100% Australian English
• Please ensure that the article has gone through a thorough copyediting so that it exemplifies some of Wikipedia's best work. See also User:Tony1/How to satisfy Criterion 1a.^[?]

You may wish to browse through User:AndyZ/Suggestions for further ideas. Thanks, -- saberwyn 10:39, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Brad101

• I'm hardly an expert at what is required to upgrade an article but from current appearance, I'm not sure why this article wasn't given B class; it should be there now, imo. If Ship's cat is at B then certainly this one should be. Anyway, I think you have a good shot at FA as it stands. --Brad (talk) 23:10, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
  • It was not given B because the majortiy of the section on the Evans collision was written by Melbourne's captain's wife, and is therefore a conflict of interest. Rewriting of this section is in progress in my userspace, and after the completed rewrite is put into the article, it will likely be promoted to B class.