Talk:USS Yorktown (CV-5)

Untitled
OK first of all, alot of this article seems to be ripped off from http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/ships/carriers/histories/cv05-yorktown/cv05-yorktown.html

Many paragraphs have been directly copied.

the error mentioned later in this passage was also copied Rekov 20 May 2006

Pics of Yorktowns wreckage should be displayed.

I-168 sunk her. NOT I-158 See combinedfleet.com

Veljko Stevanovich 25. 11. 2005. 19:30 UTC+1

Length
This article is rather long. I don't suggest that material be removed, but rather that work be done to divide it into more sections and otherwise organize it.--Lewk_of_Serthic 01:49, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

What does "Struck 2 October 1942" mean?
The table at right contains that line of text... yet it also says the Yorktown was sunk on 7 June 1942. I suggest either the "struck" line should be omitted, the date corrected if applicable, or some explanation given of what it means for a ship to be "struck" after it is "sunk".

I'll remove the line of text unless someone chimes in with a more specific fix...

Kirkpete (talk) 15:30, 29 August 2009 (UTC)


 * "Struck" refers to the ship's removal from the Naval Vessel Register, the register of Navy assets. It's not unusual for this to take place at a later date; it takes some time for an official determination of whether a ship is unrecoverable. Maralia (talk) 15:47, 29 August 2009 (UTC)


 * OK, now I would argue for striking the line as immaterial. Alternatively, this explanation should be incorporated in the table somehow... but I don't think it's worth the space. Kirkpete (talk) 11:46, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Excessive copying, lack of quotations - possible plagiarism?
I am not the first person to notice that the text of this Wikipedia entry on the Yorktown is virtually identical to text found elsewhere on the internet. User Rekov said the following up above (apologies for copying, there's no section header prior to his/her comment for a quick reference):


 * OK first of all, alot of this article seems to be ripped off from :http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/ships/carriers/histories/cv05-yorktown/cv05-yorktown.html
 * Many paragraphs have been directly copied.
 * the error mentioned later in this [Talk page] passage was also copied Rekov 20 May 2006

It seems that after that, someone added the following notices to the article at the end of the Reference section:


 * This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. The entry can be found here.
 * This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the Naval History & Heritage Command.

The thing is that this wikipedia article doesn't just "incorporate text" and "incorporate material," there are many parts that are a word for word duplication or that have very minor changes. Moreover, the whole organization of the Wikipedia article is an exact copy of the original. It is a good chronological organization but still

The original Wikipedia article was pretty much just a copy and paste Here's what I think is the original text of the Wikipedia article, as there is no link to a previous version. It was apparently created on March 11, 2003:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=USS_Yorktown_(CV-5)&oldid=739489

Here is a capture on October 15, 2002 by the Internet Wayback machine of the website that User Rekov references:

https://web.archive.org/web/20021015010303/http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/ships/carriers/histories/cv05-yorktown/cv05-yorktown.html

That web site, just like this Wikipedia article says that it is: "From: Dictionary of American Fighting Ships, published by the Naval Historical Center"

You can see that the two articles are virtually identical even in including such non-encyclopedic, editorializing phrases as "The early news from the Pacific was bleak" and "disaster struck" and "five days later when American fighting men in Hawaii were rudely awakened to find their country at war."

In fact, it seems that what appear to be original page numbers 534-538 that appear in brackets in the original Wikipedia article are from the text of the original. Here's a link to one online text version of original article ("Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol. VIII, 1981, pp. 533-38"):

http://www.hazegray.org/danfs/carriers/cv5.htm

At the end of the original Wikipedia the following appears:


 * (CV-5: dp. 19,800; l. 809' 6"; b. 83' 1"; dr. 28' 0"; s. 32.5 k.; cpl. 2.919; a. 8 5", 22 .50-cal mg., ac. 81-85; cl. Yorktown.)

Whatever that means, it's identical to text at the top of the first version of this article.

Now, there have been changes made to this article since its 2003 creation. The fanciful language has been removed and the tone of the article is much improved. There are even 11 instances of a citation to "Yorktown". Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. Navy Department, Naval History & Heritage Command. 7 April 2014." [By the way, this citation provides incomplete information because the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships is a multi-volume work and the article on the Yorktown is in volume VIII. The publication date may also be wrong unless 2014 refers to the date last accessed online].

However, there are still significant portions of this article that are still either identical to the original text or identical except for stylistic changes. For example "Va." was changed to "Virginia" or "Hampton Roads" was changed to "Hampton Roads, Virginia." Similarly,


 * The third Yorktown (CV-5) was laid down on 21 May 1934 at Newport News, Va., by the Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Co.; launched on 4 April 1936; sponsored by Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt; and commissioned at the Naval Operating Base (NOB), Norfolk, Va., on 30 September 1937, Capt. Ernest D. McWhorter in command.

Was changed to
 * Yorktown was laid down on 21 May 1934 at Newport News, Virginia, by the Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Co.; launched on 4 April 1936; sponsored by Eleanor Roosevelt; and commissioned at the Naval Station Norfolk (NS Norfolk), Norfolk, Virginia, on 30 September 1937, Captain Ernest D. McWhorter in command.

I don't have access to Volume VIII of the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships and the text for that volume does not appear in Google Books. However, it appears that the article on the Yorktown was uploaded to the internet in 12/31/2015 by the Navy with slight changes; it also apparently lists Robert J. Cressman as the author. Robert Cressman has a 2000 book that is listed in the Wikipedia article as "Further reading." I don't know if he was the original author of the article in 1981. The link provided in the citations as well as the link at the end notice about incorporation of public domain material point to this page. Anybody reading this article who actually follows the link, will see that the Wikipedia article still largely consists of that same text with some slight changes and some slight additions.

Here's just one example of a large chunk of nearly identical text. The Wikipedia article:


 * Yorktown operated off the eastern seaboard, ranging from Chesapeake Bay to Guantanamo Bay, into 1939. As flagship for Carrier Division 2, she participated in her first war game—Fleet Problem XX—along with her sister-ship Enterprise in February 1939. The scenario for the exercise called for one fleet to control the sea lanes in the Caribbean against the incursion of a foreign European power while maintaining sufficient naval strength to protect vital American interests in the Pacific. The maneuvers were witnessed, in part, by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, embarked in the heavy cruiser Houston.
 * The critique of the operation revealed that carrier operations—a part of the scenarios for the annual exercises since the entry of Langley into the war games in 1925—had achieved a new peak of efficiency. Despite the inexperience of Yorktown and Enterprise—comparative newcomers to the Fleet—both carriers made significant contributions to the success of the problem. The planners had studied the employment of carriers and their embarked air groups in connection with convoy escort, antisubmarine defense, and various attack measures against surface ships and shore installations. In short, they worked to develop the tactics that would be used when war actually came.


 * Pacific Fleet
 * Following Fleet Problem XX, Yorktown returned briefly to Hampton Roads before sailing for the Pacific on 20 April 1939. Transiting the Panama Canal a week later, Yorktown soon commenced a regular routine of operations with the Pacific Fleet. The Second World War started on 1 September 1939, but the USA was not yet involved. Operating out of San Diego, California into 1940, the carrier participated in Fleet Problem XXI that April. Yorktown was one of six ships to receive the new RCA CXAM radar in 1940.

The original text from the 1981 article:


 * Yorktown operated off the eastern seaboard, ranging from Chesapeake Bay to Guantanamo Bay, into 1939. As flagship for Carrier Division (CarDiv) 2, she participated in her first war game — Fleet Problem XX — along with her sistership USS Enterprise (CV-6) in February 1939. The scenario for the exercise called for one fleet to control the sea lanes in the Caribbean against the incursion of a foreign European power while maintaining sufficient naval strength to protect vital American interests in the Pacific. The maneuvers were witnessed, in part, by President Roosevelt, embarked in the heavy cruiser USS Houston (CA-30).
 * The critique of the operation revealed that carrier operations — a part of the scenarios for the annual exercises since the entry of USS Langley (CV-1) into the war games in 1925 — had achieved a new peak of efficiency. Despite the inexperience of Yorktown and Enterprise — comparative newcomers to the Fleet — both carriers made significant contributions to the success of the problem. The planners had studied the employment of carriers and their embarked air groups in connection with convoy escort, antisubmarine defense, and various attack measures against surface ships and shore installations. In short, they worked to develop the tactics that would be used when war actually came.
 * Following Fleet Problem XX, Yorktown returned briefly to Hampton Roads before sailing for the Pacific on 20 April. Transiting the Panama Canal a week later, Yorktown soon commenced a regular routine of operations with the Pacific Fleet. Operating out of San Diego into 1940, the carrier participated in Fleet Problem XXI that April.
 * Fleet Problem XXI — a two-part exercise — included some of the operations that would characterize future warfare in the Pacific. The first part of the exercise was devoted to training in making plans and estimates; in screening and scouting; in coordination of combatant units; and in employing fleet and standard dispositions. The second phase included training in convoy protection, the seizure of advanced bases, and, ultimately, the decisive engagement between the opposing fleets. The last pre-war exercise of its type, Fleet Problem XXI, contained two exercises (comparatively minor at the time) where air operations played a major role. Fleet Joint Air Exercise 114A prophetically pointed out the need to coordinate Army and Navy defense plans for the Hawaiian Islands, and Fleet Exercise 114 proved that aircraft could be used for high altitude tracking of surface forces — a significant role for planes that would be fully realized in the war to come.

Anyone looking at these two documents and not seeing any quotation marks nor other indication that the text is taken from the Navy article could conclude that the Wikipedia article is plagiarized, despite the "This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. The entry can be found here." The information and even the text may be in the public domain (1981 publication date?) or even be "public domain material" from the Navy, but quoted language must still be identified. It may not be a copyright violation for which compensation might be due, but that doesn't mean everything is fine.

I copied the text from the Wikipedia article and from the Navy article into Word and used the compare function on the two. Looking at the resulting comparison reveals that indeed, there are still major portions of the current article that are just copied and pasted from the original. I can provide the complete document with redlining and strike through text as a pdf document. I'm looking into seeing how I can post it or make it available online somewhere.

Moreover, some parts of what is quoted in the article is totally unnecessary for the purposes of a Wikipedia article. For example, the whole paragraph quoted above starting with "The critique of the operation revealed that carrier operations and ending with "had achieved a new peak of efficiency" just seems too trivial a detail to be included here.

IMO, this article reflects badly on the credibility of Wikipedia. Ileanadu (talk) 20:53, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

Other changes that are needed
Because this article is largely copied from a Navy article, there is terminology here that the average Wikipedia user may not be familiar with. For example, article states that the ship was "laid down" on 21 May 1934, that it was"sponsored by" Eleanor Roosevelt and that "The maneuvers were witnessed, in part, by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, embarked in the heavy cruiser Houston."

There is no link to a definition of "laid down" so I did a search and found Keel laying and that tells me that's when the ship's building is officially begun. The use of proper terminology in the info box is fine, however in the text of the article terms of art or technical terms should be explained or a link provided for users of Wikipedia who are unfamiliar with the terminology. I could not find a quick reference to the meaning of "sponsored by. Is that the same as "christened by"? I imagine "embarked in" means "aboard the." If so, then the sentence about the maneuvers can be shortened and made clearer for all readers/users by changing to active voice and saying that "President Franklin Delano Roosevelt witnessed part of the maneuvers from aboard the heavy cruiser Houston."

These are just a couple of the changes that could turn this from an article intended for aficionados of Navy ships and Navy history to an encyclopedia article that needs to inform students as well as any English speaker (reader) who does not have a command of technical jargon. Ileanadu (talk) 21:19, 24 September 2016 (UTC)


 * I went ahead and turned "laid down" into a link.
 * I also looked up "sponsorship" and found an article which describes the process:


 * http://societyofsponsorsofusn.org/about/


 * I see it is more than just the christening of the ship and it appears the sponsor is always female, even if the ship is named for a woman, such as the USS Gabrielle Giffords. There should be a link to some explanation of what it means for a ship to be sponsored by someone. Ileanadu (talk) 21:31, 24 September 2016 (UTC)