Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Peer review/USS Wisconsin (BB-64)

USS Wisconsin (BB-64)

A year has come and gone since this article was last reviewed in any official capacity, and since I wish to ensure the battleship maintains her FA-star I am submitting the article for a peer review to get input as to how the article can be improved. Note that I am in summer school at the moment, so if I appear slow to respond here have patients, its likely school work has me tied up. TomStar81 (Talk) 23:54, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

TomStar81

• Copyedit to reduce reduntent info
• Edits are needed for clarity and flow
• Check for repetativeness
• Check for NPOV compliance (de-DANFS-ify)
• Check for exotic words/phrases
• Ensure infoboxes for all Iowa class battleships adhere to a single format
• Check sources against those questioned during FAC for Montana class battleship (wp:reliability compliance)
• Assertain whether the attack of March 19, 1945, for a bomb run or a kamikaze run (re USS Franklin (CV-13), "Service with the 5th Fleet, Admiral Spurance")
  • Not a kamikaze attack; this has been corrected

Jappalang

I apologize for not reading the full article before writing the notes below. However, I believe my comments, even if extracted from the first half (up to Bombardment of Japan), are reflective of the article as a whole.

While reading the earlier sections, I find there to be more details than I think is necessary. Examples would be:

• Her shakedown and refitting, which was uneventful and dull. Unless the ship had no shakedown or had an eventful shakedown, I think this detail can be forgone to the benefit of the general reader.
• "On 24 September 1944 Wisconsin sailed for the west coast, transiting the Panama Canal, and reporting for duty with the Pacific Fleet on 2 October. The battleship later moved to Hawaiian waters for training exercises and then headed for the Western Caroline Islands. Upon reaching the Caroline Island Ulithi she joined U.S. Navy Admiral William F. Halsey's Third Fleet on 9 December 1944." -> "Wisconsin reported for duty with the Pacific Fleet on 2 October 1944 and joined U.S. Navy Admiral William F. Halsey's Third Fleet at Caroline Island Ulithi on 9 December 1944."
• "On 18 December 1944 the ships of Task Force 38 unexpectedly found themselves in a fight for their lives when Typhoon Cobra overtook the force— seven fleet and six light carriers, eight battleships, 15 cruisers, and about 50 destroyers— during their attempt to refuel at sea. At the time the ships were operating about 300 miles (500 km) east of Luzon in the Philippine Sea. The carriers had just completed three days of heavy raids against Japanese airfields, suppressing enemy aircraft during the American amphibious operations against Mindoro in the Philippines. The task force rendezvoused with Captain Jasper T. Acuff and his fueling group 17 December with the intention of refueling all ships in the task force and replacing lost aircraft. Although the sea had been growing rougher all day, the nearby cyclonic disturbance gave relatively little warning of its approach. On 18 December, the small but violent typhoon overtook the Task Force while many of the ships were attempting to refuel. Many of the ships were caught near the center of the storm and buffeted by extreme seas and hurricane force winds. Three destroyers, Hull (DD-350), Monaghan (DD-354), and Spence (DD-512), capsized and sank with nearly all hands, while a cruiser, five aircraft carriers, and three destroyers suffered serious damage. Approximately 790 officers and men were lost or killed, with another 80 injured. Fires occurred in three carriers when planes broke loose in their hangars and some 146 planes on various ships were lost or damaged beyond economical repair by fires, impact damage, or by being swept overboard. Wisconsin reported two injured sailors as a result of the typhoon, but otherwise proved her seaworthiness as she escaped the storm unscathed." -> "On 18 December 1944, Task Force 38 unexpectedly found themselves in a fight for their lives when Typhoon Cobra overtook them during a refuelling attempt at sea. At the time, the ships were operating about 300 miles (500 km) east of Luzon in the Philippine Sea. The carriers had just completed three days of heavy raids against Japanese airfields, suppressing enemy aircraft during American amphibious operations against Mindoro in the Philippines. The task force had rendezvoused with Captain Jasper T. Acuff and his fueling group to refuel and replace lost aircraft on 17 December. They saw little warning of the approaching small but violent typhoon. The tropical cyclone overtook the Task Force on the next day while many of the ships were attempting to refuel. Many of the ships were caught near the center of the storm and were buffeted by extreme seas and hurricane force winds. Three destroyers, Hull (DD-350), Monaghan (DD-354), and Spence (DD-512), capsized and sank with nearly all hands, while a cruiser, five aircraft carriers, and three destroyers suffered serious damage. Approximately 790 officers and men were lost or killed, with another 80 injured. Fires occurred in three carriers when planes broke loose in their hangars. The force suffered the effective loss of 146 planes due to fires, impact damage, or by being swept overboard. Wisconsin reported two injured sailors as a result of the typhoon, but otherwise proved her seaworthiness by escaping the storm unscathed."

There are several cases of redundant or rambling elements within sentences as well:

• "she was actually completed": The "actually" is redundant especially when "although" was used at the start.
• "Due to the length of time it took to build," -> "Due to her long construction time,"
• The last three paragraphs of "Shakedown and service with 3rd Fleet, Admiral Halsey" can be copy-edited and combined into a single paragraph.
• "On that day, one of Wisconsin’s float-planes landed and rescued a downed pilot from the carrier Shangri-La (CV-38).": Landed on the carrier? On the sea? Why not just delete "landed and"?
• "Wisconsin ultimately put into Leyte Gulf and dropped anchor there on 13 June 1945 for repairs and replenishment." Why the use of "ultimately"? -> "On 13 June 1945, Wisconsin put into Leyte Gulf for repairs and replenishment."

There is an occasional disjointed flow or confusion in the readings:

• The very first paragraph is disjointed; Some description of the Iowa class before the second statement could provide a flow-in from the previous statement of "fast battleship" design. Something also needs to be done between the laying of her keel and her launch as those two sentences do not flow smoothly with each other.
• Three (four) consecutive paragraphs at the start of "Service with 5th Fleet, Admiral Spruance" beginning with "Wisconsin". This cna be rephrased.
• "redesignated TF 58": Was this TF 38?
• "Japanese shipping, both naval and merchant, also suffered drastically, as did hangars and aircraft installations." How do hangars and installations suffer drastically?
• "They revisited Tokyo on 25 February": I do not think a mental image of TF members taking a guided tour through Akihabara and Shinjuku should possibly be presented.
• "Wisconsin's task force stood out of Ulithi on 14 March 1945 bound for Japan." What is meant by "stood out"?
• Although I understand that the BPF consists of Commonwealth ships, the phrase "British battleships of the British Pacific Fleet" reads a bit funny. Any way to rephrase it?

Other comments:

• The main armaments of the Iowa class are not mentioned to be housed in how many turrets. An omission of details.
• Was Wisconsin part of TF38 or was she an independent escort?
• What were the results of TF 58's "eliminate airborne resistance from the Japanese homeland to American forces off Okinawa"?
• Active phrasing generally works better, e.g. "resulting in heavy damage to" -> "dealing heavy damage to"

I think a thorough copyedit and trimming would help this article greatly and will gladly review again a trimmed copy-edited article. Jappalang (talk) 03:57, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

David Fuchs

Some initial comments:

• “Wisconsin was last decommissioned” – you mean the Wisky was decommissioned last? Or what? Was it just plain decommissioned (I didn’t know they came back after being decommissioned.)
• Forgive me as I’m just a video games editor :P but is it allowed usage to refer to the ship as “her” and “she” rather than “the ship”?
• “She was launched on December 7, 1943, sponsored by Mrs. Goodland, wife of Walter S. Goodland, the governor of Wisconsin, and commissioned on April 16, 1944, with Captain Earl E. Stone in command.” The sentences in these paragraph suffer from repetitive construction and this sentence is somewhat rambling. Reword or chop up.
• ” Working round-the clock, Wisconsin’s ship’s force and shipyard personnel completed the operation which grafted the new bow on the old battleship in a mere 16 days.” – mere sounds POV-ish; unless you can demonstrate that 16 days was very little for the operation.

Overall, looks good so far, I'll check back later with some more comments. --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 14:54, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for commenting. The only immediate answerI can give is for the "her/she" comment: if you look on the talk page for good ole WisKy you'll find an FAQ box which provides the answer to this question (and a few others). Thanks for the comments. TomStar81 (Talk) 19:15, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Brad101

• There are several sensationalist phrases like "Her turrets boomed again" and "Blasting/ed Japanese targets" that should be altered.
• The number of references should be increased if possible using different sources ie: not so much reliance on DANFS.
• One thing I have noticed across all of the Iowa class articles is that the infoboxes are not all laid out the same way. Perhaps now would be the time to figure out what to do with those before going for Featured Topic.

--Brad (talk) 17:15, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Doncram

• I have personal views on what is appropriate use of public domain text, which I believe are not widely shared by SHIPS editors and reviewers. There is history in wikipedia of including EB1911 and DANFS and other text in articles, but i and at least some others think that it would be better for Wikipedia policy to change, at least for featured content. There is some current discussion of draft policy at Wikipedia talk:Plagiarism. Supporters of recycling public domain text tend to believe that it is the wiki way, and highly value the ability to reuse other free text, just as wikipedia allows and hopes for others to re-use wikipedia text according to our license. However, I personally believe that it is not good practice to treat public domain text as anything different from any other source, at least not in GAs or FAs. Although it is not a violation of copyright to incorporate PD text, it makes the resulting wikipedia article less valuable, in my view. It is not currently policy to require any different attribution than is included in this article, but it could be good practice to do so. A Featured Article is supposed to be Wikipedia's best writing. In my view, an article which contains passages of recycled text is inferior than that, it is not Wikipedia's best writing, much of it is not Wikipedia's writing at all.

• One reason to treat DANFS like any other source, is so that the wikipedia article is itself more valuable. Consider, if someone might wish to cite the Wikipedia article, version as of a certain date. Note, one cannot accurately credit Wikipedia with authorship of this article. If you quote from it, to be accurate you would need to say, this is from Wikipedia or sources that Wikipedia has copied from, and there is no generally available guidance about how to cite in any such way. To cite giving credit to just Wikipedia, accurately, you would have to do a special analysis of DANFS source, to check whether the real source of wording is from DANFS as opposed to wikipedia editors.

• About the use of DANFS text generally, I and perhaps other reviewers in their comments above find that DANFS text is often in quaint language and is not in modern idiom. The editors of this article are perfectly capable, as shown in their treatment of other sources, to treat DANFS text like any other text and give explicit credit to DANFS for wording (besides giving credit to DANFS for being the source of facts). This would involve use of quotation marks and so on, or rewording. If you had to do that, though, I expect you would usually choose instead to do complete rewriting, rather than add excessive quotes, and in recognition that the DANFS text is old, itself.

• Setting aside general policy, about the current article, I personally feel it would be a better article if the extent of DANFS text recycling was reduced, and if the attribution of any copied text was made more clear than it currently is, right now. There does exist a small print disclaimer "This article includes text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships" included in the Further Reading section. You editors and I know exactly what that means, but I believe that is inadequate notice for the general reader and for many who might ever wish to rely upon the information in this article.

• Consider the following example. The DANFS source has passage:

The second Wisconsin (BB-64) was laid down on 25 January 1941 at the Philadelphia Navy Yard; launched on 7 December 1943; sponsored by Mrs. Walter S. Goodland; and commissioned on 16 April 1944, Capt. Earl E. Stone in command.

• The article has corresponding passage:

She was launched on 7 December 1943, sponsored by Mrs. Goodland, wife of Walter S. Goodland, the governor of Wisconsin, and commissioned on 16 April 1944, with Captain Earl E. Stone in command.[2][3]

• About that example, I don't think that Mrs. Goodland is worth mentioning, I don't expect she is a notable person, especially as her importance is suggested to be only in her association with Walter S. Goodland. The revised version is somewhat better for attempting to explain Walter's notability, but that has the effect of expanding this, when it would be best to reduce it, in my view. It is DANFS practice to write in this quaint way. The current article passage is mostly the same. Rather than introducing quotes to give explicit credit to DANFS for the wording, I would suggest dropping most of the sentence and rewriting entirely new text.

• I hope some may find these comments helpful. doncram (talk) 20:50, 1 July 2008 (UTC)