Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/1910 London to Manchester air race/archive1


 * The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Karanacs 21:31, 1 June 2010.

1910 London to Manchester air race

 * Nominator(s): Parrot of Doom 14:24, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

A spiffing-eh-what-chap! footnote in the history of aviation, all reviewers are required to listen to "Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines" while reading this article. Parrot of Doom 14:24, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment—no dab links, no dead external links. Ucucha 14:50, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Sources: All sources look OK. It would be best to standardise the format of the ("Registration required") tag which is located differently in ref. 3 than elsewhere. Brianboulton (talk) 15:46, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure there's much I can do about that, all citations use templates. Parrot of Doom 16:01, 25 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Fixed, I think. Malleus Fatuorum 21:43, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Support
 * One of the most enjoyable reads I've had lately. Structure, referencing and detail look fine. I get the subtlety about the format of the 'race' so fair enough about going back to the original wording in the lead.
 * As for "take-off", I'm still a bit dubious about the action being the same format as the noun, e.g. "take-off and landing" looks right but "He planned to take-off" doesn't. Can you just double-check the OED on that?
 * Quite correct, in my haste using WikEd I forgot to check each instance. The OED uses gives several variations as examples, but take-off seems the most appropriate.  A search for "takeoff" just redirects to "take off" or "take-off". Parrot of Doom 13:44, 26 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Given you seem to be using words for figures under 10 elsewhere, "5 miles" should probably be "five miles"...
 * Done. Parrot of Doom 13:44, 26 May 2010 (UTC)


 * My one suggestion re. the excellent supporting materials is that the images could stand to be rendered larger, plus you could alternate left and right with the quote boxes, i.e. since you have Paulhan's quote on the left following his image on the right, why not do the same for Grahame-White?  Anyway, jolly good show all round -- rather! Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 13:32, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Fair point, I've rearranged the quote boxes. For images however, I prefer to use the standard thumb size, for small screens large images can create havoc.  Thanks for the support. Parrot of Doom 13:44, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Fair enough, the portraits of the aviators are okay at the default size from where I sit. However I notice the lead image size is forced now to something much greater than default; the new one at night on the other hand looks really tiny as a standard thumb... ;-) Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 06:01, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Yeah that happened as the result of a discussion about the image licences, I uploaded a full size one and it rescaled accordingly. I think a slightly larger image is probably ok at the top as the contents box breaks things up, but lower down the text and quote boxes will end up squashing together.  I'm not fussed about the nighttime image though, if anyone wants to make it bigger I don't mind. Parrot of Doom 08:11, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Images okay: the two portraits of the aviators are from the Bain Collection, which Commons have accepted to be in the public domain so far. The photo of the flight (and all Flight-copyrighted images in that issue) is in the public domain by virtue of publishing before 1923 (US) and corporate authorship (UK). A Commons gallery or category about this event could be generated from the drawings/photos in this issue of the magazine if anyone is willing to do so. Jappalang (talk) 09:27, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Support: Pip, pip, tallyho, and all that. A fine read of these chaps' flights, as they flit into the wide blue yonder and outrace cars. Short but comprehensive and enjoyable article, nothing substantial to gripe about or to oppose on. Cheerio! Jappalang (talk) 09:27, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Support: Very well written and nice to see 'aeroplane' being used ('aircraft' is the neutral international term that the aviation project has mainly settled on to avoid arguments, 'aeroplane' is entirely acceptable and that is indeed what they were called back then, it's the word 'plane' that causes the problems). Only one thing that I noticed, the site of Hendon is mentioned as 'what is now Hendon Aerodrome' if I read the context correctly. Hendon aerodrome is now the site of the Royal Air Force Museum London which has a hangar display dedicated to Grahame-White. You could probably squeeze that in somewhere ('See also' section?). Nice job. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by)    22:17, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks for spotting the Hendon thing, I'll change it to "what is now Royal Air Force Museum London" or similar. I think the factory is probably best slotted into Grahame-White's article. Parrot of Doom 22:32, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I did make a concious decision to use aeroplane instead of aircraft, it suits the article more I think. Interestingly enough, lots of the sources used the term "airship", but I thought that would be a bit confusing :) Parrot of Doom 22:35, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Hendon was my father's first RAF posting, probably not far off closing the station at that time. Airship?! These things were so new that they didn't know what to call them! I agree that the museum stuff should go in CGW's article if it is not there already (have not looked), the museum article does need expanding, too much to do! There is a standard template Template:Infobox aviation that could be used for the top of the article, it would make the image smaller but repeats the title, I was going to add it but saw the alt text which the template doesn't support, would like some clarification on the policy of alt text from the FA team, quite confusing at the moment (it's still in the check toolbox for instance). Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by)    22:59, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
 * It shouldn't be too much trouble to add an alt text parameter to the aviation infobox template if you guys want to make use of it. I managed to add it myself to the aviator infobox template when I put Lester Brain up for FAC recently, and I gave up coding for a living years ago.... ;-) Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 23:40, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
 * We are lacking a template coder and updater in the av project at the moment, I am fairly clueless with them sadly. My understanding is that alt text is no longer an FA requirement, it appears from recent discussions that it never was, one editor slipped a line unnoticed into the guidelines somewhere and there you go. I'm all for accessibility and even thought of trying to produce some spoken articles, just need clarification on the matter. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by)    23:50, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, it's a grey area in practice; whether its adoption as a guideline was really legit or not, it seems enough of us have accepted or agreed with it to make it a de facto requirement. My suggestion is that if Parrot adds the aviation infobox here, that's impetus to add the requisite parameter to it so all images in the article consistently have alt text as they do now. When/if I have time I may just update the template anyway; having the parameter doesn't mean one is forced to use it... Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 00:07, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
 * That infobox doesn't seem to be a particularly well fleshed-out example, and wouldn't really add much at present. Perhaps there ought to be a new infobox, for pioneering achievements across the board?  I may return to the subject of aviation, I'm sure I can find more things that these two got up to, however, I started this because it contained Manchester in the title :) Parrot of Doom 08:04, 28 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Support. No long essay this time, as I've been watching this one during its gestation and any issues have been resolved along the way. The one thing I'd change is "The event marked the first long-distance race in England" – presumably it was actually the first long-distance aircraft race. – iride  scent  14:10, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Done, thanks. Parrot of Doom 14:31, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Support – Great read from start to finish, to the point where I wished the article was longer so there would be more to read. Well done.  Giants2008  ( 27 and counting ) 01:27, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the compliments, I'm hoping to add a bit more at some point about the two aeroplanes used (both Farman III's but slightly different). Parrot of Doom 16:29, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.