Talk:Interception of the Rex/GA1

GA Review
The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.''


 * Oppose-I think that this article needs to be improved by a few more citations and the expansion of the introduction, which is extremely short by good article standards. For now i'll oppose, but if it is fixed up and I am notified and satisfied, I will support it. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 22:10, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Hi! Since the editor who commented above does not seem to be completing a full review of the article, I will take it on. I should have the full review up soon. Dana boomer (talk) 20:14, 6 January 2009 (UTC)


 * GA review (see here for criteria)


 * 1) It is reasonably well written.
 * a (prose): b (MoS):
 * The lead needs to be expanded. For an article of this length the lead should be two or three paragraphs that are each a bit longer than the current paragraph.
 * Due to my concerns about references (see below), I haven't done a complete review of the prose. When I see the references being worked on, I will re-review the article with an eye towards prose.
 * 1) It is factually accurate and verifiable.
 * a (references): b (citations to reliable sources):  c (OR):
 * This article needs more in the way of referencing. I tend to get concerned when I see entire paragraphs without references...  Also, statements that have the possibility to be contentious especially need references, as well as statements that include exact dates or numerical figures. Some examples are (although this is not a complete list):
 * Second paragraph of the Description section: "Both had continuing disagreements..."
 * Third paragraph of the Shasta Disaster section: "were more concerned about..."
 * First paragraph of the Joint Exercise No. 4 section: "despite resistance from the..."
 * Third paragraph of the Interception section: "purportedly singing the..."
 * As I said, this isn't an exhausive list, just some examples. When I don't see refs at the end of paragraphs, I start looking really closely at refs (more so than usual), and there are a lot of paragraphs in this article that don't have refs at the end of them.
 * Web references need to all have publishers and access dates.
 * If you are going to use a split reference system for books, you have to do it for all of the books, to keep things consistent.
 * What makes Ref #39 reliable? It appears to be a self-published source that gives no references for where they got their information.
 * Ref #40 is not reliable. What you're quoting (the newspaper article) is fine, but the fact that it comes off an Ancestry.com discussion board is not.  Try to find another web source for the article, or just cite the print article.
 * 1) It is broad in its coverage.
 * a (major aspects): b (focused):
 * 1) It follows the neutral point of view policy.
 * Fair representation without bias:
 * 1) It is stable.
 * No edit wars etc.:
 * 1) It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.
 * a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
 * Are there no more images that you could find to use? The top half is nice, but the bottom half of the article is all text and no images, which makes it harder to read.  Images are not a requirement for GA status, but it would be nice to see more images of the participants, etc.
 * 1) Overall:
 * Pass/Fail:
 * I have quite a few concerns with the referencing of this article, as well as a few comments on MOS and images. As I say above, I haven't done a complete check of the prose due to my concerns about references, and so for now I am leaving the NPOV and completeness sections blank, as I have not checked these areas either. I feel that this article can be pulled into shape fairly quickly, if the editors are willing to put the time into it, so I am putting it on hold for now.  If you have any questions, please let me know! Dana boomer (talk) 21:07, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
 * You appear to be making some fairly substantial changes to the prose while you're referencing the article. Would you please drop a note here when you're finished, and I will re-review the article?  At this point, there are still a couple of places where I would like to see references, but I'm not sure if you've just not gotten to them yet.  Let me know... Dana boomer (talk) 20:41, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Can't say that I've completely finished, but I have tried to address the concerns listed. Part of the re-write would have come anyway, but part came while checking references to be sure that what preceded the note was from the source listed. I discovered a few errors, and an additional source which provided new material that was incorporated into the text. Articles of this length need to be read aloud to discover syntax errors, grammatical mistakes, and awkward phrasing, so there will likely be a few more prose revisions. --Reedmalloy (talk) 09:35, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I have quite a few concerns with the referencing of this article, as well as a few comments on MOS and images. As I say above, I haven't done a complete check of the prose due to my concerns about references, and so for now I am leaving the NPOV and completeness sections blank, as I have not checked these areas either. I feel that this article can be pulled into shape fairly quickly, if the editors are willing to put the time into it, so I am putting it on hold for now.  If you have any questions, please let me know! Dana boomer (talk) 21:07, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
 * You appear to be making some fairly substantial changes to the prose while you're referencing the article. Would you please drop a note here when you're finished, and I will re-review the article?  At this point, there are still a couple of places where I would like to see references, but I'm not sure if you've just not gotten to them yet.  Let me know... Dana boomer (talk) 20:41, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Can't say that I've completely finished, but I have tried to address the concerns listed. Part of the re-write would have come anyway, but part came while checking references to be sure that what preceded the note was from the source listed. I discovered a few errors, and an additional source which provided new material that was incorporated into the text. Articles of this length need to be read aloud to discover syntax errors, grammatical mistakes, and awkward phrasing, so there will likely be a few more prose revisions. --Reedmalloy (talk) 09:35, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Second Review
Wow! Things look much improved. Thanks for all of the work on the article over the past few days - it makes reviewing much easier. I see now that although you are the main editor of the article, you were not the one who nominated it for GA, which makes your work all the more impressive. I'm starting a new section to list the remaining issues I have found in the article, after conducting a full review of the prose.


 * What makes Ref #80 (The Classic Liners of Long Ago) reliable?
 * What makes Ref #81 (Early Liners) reliable for the history of ships?
 * Book references need to be made consistent. They should either all be in split format or all not.  Same for magazines.
 * In the Operation Rex Redux section, it says "intercepted the prepositioning ship". I'm not sure what a "prepositioning ship" is.  Could you explain or wikilink, please?

Other than the one comment above, the prose looks great. The two iffy references and the consistency of the book and magazine refs are the main thing holding the article up from GA status. Please let me know if you have any questions. Dana boomer (talk) 21:24, 17 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Forgive my ignorance, but briefly explain this "split format" thing to me. Are we talking about a spcae-saving issue? I wrote the original article based on having the original Correll article in hand (I am a life member of the AFA and as such receive their journal every month, rather than using the on-line resource). It can be converted to the on-line source fairly easily, making one gigantic source for things I broke down page-by-page. My only reluctance is that these sites are frequently reorganized and links are killed or changed. I found that to be the case in a number of sources I re-checked here (and when not lazy I cited the new links at the original articles). As for the "prepositioning ship", it's an irrelevant description to this article and will be edited to something simpler. The two links about the fate of the Rex were a matter of convenience, obviously; the first Correll article actually notes its fate in detail.--Reedmalloy (talk) 06:18, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
 * The split refs format refers simply to book and article refs, not web refs. Basically, you have some books that just have "author, page" for the in-line refs and then have the full information at the bottom of the References section. There are other books that have the full information in-line. Same for magazines.  These need to be standardized so that the books are either all "author, page" (with full info below) or have all of their info in-line. Same for magazines.  I generally consider it easier to go with the former format, but you can go either way. Does this make more sense? (I'm sorry, I'm not the greatest at explaining this...) It's great that you have access to the print version of these magazines/books, and in no way am I asking you to change them all to web references - that would be a huge waste of resources, in my opinion. If the two links that I have questions about are simply convenience references, then you may of course leave them in, as long as they are backed up by a reliable magazine reference. Dana boomer (talk) 13:44, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
 * No, actually you did a very good job of explaining. I was over-thinking the situation. I used the featured article on Samuel Adams as my guide (a new book is out on him) and very quickly ended the split format. As for the print version of the article "Rendezvous with the Rex", I'll leave it as is unless somebody recommends otherwise. I'm still working on the final two cites (80, 81 above), as I would rather have another source if possible, but if unable to locate an articulably reliable source, will refer to the first article. Thanx for your help; this process has been very instructive! I have one previous GA, but it was a major overhaul of an existing article and was not nearly the same learning experience.--Reedmalloy (talk) 09:49, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Everything looks great with the article, so I'm going to pass it to GA status. Very nice work and thanks for making all of the changes I have asked for. Please let me know if you have any further questions. Dana boomer (talk) 17:26, 24 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanx for your patience. The end result was a much better article, and therefore a better Wikipedia. Nice working with you.--Reedmalloy (talk) 09:11, 25 January 2009 (UTC)