Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Dutch 1913 battleship proposal/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 23:28, 27 March 2010.

Dutch 1913 battleship proposal

 * Nominator(s): — Ed   (talk  •  majestic titan)  17:19, 11 March 2010 (UTC) and Nick-D (talk) 17:19, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

In the Netherlands' history, only two classes of non-sail capital ships have ever been proposed. This was the first; the Design 1047 battlecruisers were planned in the 30s. Why have you never heard of them before? Well, in both cases a world war exploded, confining the designs to theoretical counterfactual scenarios. Thanks to Nick-D, the article has expanded far beyond my original draft, and we now believe that it is ready for a FAC. Any and all comments are welcomed, and we will attempt to address them promptly. — Ed   (talk  •  majestic titan)  17:19, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
 * As noted by Ed, this article has been a joint project between him and myself, and this FAC is a joint nomination. I look forward to reading other editors' comments on the article. Nick-D (talk) 22:30, 11 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Comments. The lead image lacks alt text. Fixed now, thanks! Ucucha 20:36, 11 March 2010 (UTC) Alt text for the other images is good; no dab links; no dead external links. Ucucha 19:19, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment: One observation so far. The armour values for the turrets in Footnote 1 are question marks...please fill in or remove. -- saberwyn 22:48, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
 * That was done for consistency with footnote 2...before it I have noted that "question marks denote unknown values." — Ed   (talk  •  majestic titan)  07:51, 13 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Comments - sources look okay, links checked out with the link checker tool. Ealdgyth - Talk 16:05, 13 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Thank you Nick-D (talk) 22:33, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

Anyway, that's it from me. Looks very good, cheers. — AustralianRupert (talk) 12:28, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment - I think you might want to include some of your background section in the lede, so give the reader some sense of the importance of the article. Just a thought. Billare (talk) 08:47, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I've added some information on that. What do you think? — Ed   (talk  •  majestic titan)  19:24, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Support: I believe that this article is up to scratch. I only have a couple of minor points, as I couldn't find much wrong with it:
 * no dabs, alt text present and good (IMO), ext links ok (no action required);
 * in the lead there is a mixture of capitalisation of royal commission (sometimes capitalised, other times not);
 * on my machine there is a bit of whitespace in the Proposal section due to the placement of the image, not sure if it just me, though;
 * in the design section there is a mixture of spelling of metres ("184 metres (604 ft), beam of 28 meters");
 * Citation #7 and 10 look the same and could probably be consolidated per WP:NAMEDREFS;
 * the capitalisation of the book title "Battleships and battle cruisers" seems inconsistent with the capitalisation of the other titles, I think.
 * I've addressed all of these points. Nick, can you check this edit in case you messed up the pages or something? (when I screw up named refs, that's normally the problem) Breyer was weirdly capitalized because of its OCLC listing. Thanks for your comments; you have a good eye. :-) — Ed   (talk  •  majestic titan)  20:50, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * That edit and reference is still fine Ed Nick-D (talk) 09:06, 21 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Support Seems a thorough job, up to FA standards. Johnbod (talk) 14:48, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Support Delightful article. Very interesting presentation. A few quibbles: in the second paragraph of the lead, the change in tense is jarring. I suggest continuing in the tense you were using, rather than would have/could have, because that is the tense you use throughout the article. I realize you and Nick are comma-tose (fewer commas) and I am comma-kazi (more commas), so I won't argue about those. Auntieruth55 (talk) 00:22, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I still have a "would be," but what do you think of this? — Ed   (talk  •  majestic titan)  04:43, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Review from Charles Edward
 * Prose
 * "During the early years of the 20th century, the Dutch became concerned about their ability to defend their colonial empire in the NEI from foreign aggressors." - What is the NEI? Suggest spelling it out and putting (NEI) in parenthesis.
 * That's done the first time the term is mentioned, which is second sentence of the lead Nick-D (talk) 10:42, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Missing an "of" "It comprised of a small number of destroyers..."
 * I personally don't think that reads well Nick-D (talk) 10:42, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
 * "Four coast defense ships were projected in one of the two major bills to come before the Tweede Kamer in 1912." - seems like "coastal defense ships" would be the proper term here.
 * I think that both terms are right, but I've tweaked this as you suggest - it also brings it into line with the name of the relevant article Nick-D (talk) 10:42, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
 * "Specifications of these ships included..." should be "Specifications for these ships included"
 * Yes, that reads better Nick-D (talk) 10:42, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
 * General
 * "One ship of this design was very close to being authorized in 1912, but it was felt by experts and the Tweede Kamer that the Netherlands would be better served by constructing dreadnoughts of a type similar to the Spanish España class." - What experts? Who made the decision? (You haven't introduced the commission yet)
 * I think that's one for Ed Nick-D (talk) 10:42, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
 * "The Dutch Navy would need a significant manpower expansion of 2,800 ratings to crew the proposed battleships." - what does that mean? 2,800 per ship? 2,800 total? A "rating" of 2,800 for each crew member?
 * I've just tweaked the article to clarify this (a 'rating' is a member of the navy, and the entire class of ships would require that the Navy recruit 2,800 extra men) Nick-D (talk) 10:42, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Consider a see also section, perhaps a link to portal:netherlands as well.
 * See also sections are discouraged under WP:SEEALSO, and I don't think that there are any articles which need to be linked which haven't been included in the article's prose - do you think that any links are missing? I've added a link to the portal as you suggest. Nick-D (talk) 10:42, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Images all check out - note lead image is non-free.
 * No MOS issues

Very nice article, Good Job! My nit-picks are relatively minor, address them and I will be glad to support. &mdash;Charles Edward (Talk 12:36, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks a lot for taking the time to review the article Nick-D (talk) 10:42, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Support Very nice article. In regards to the see also guideline, I don't read it to say they are discouraged; I do read it to say they are not always appropriate. The portal was the primary item I was thinking would be appropriate there, but by itself it could just as well go elsewhere. Good job on the article! &mdash;Charles Edward (Talk 12:22, 24 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Note, could editors who know the author please comment on the extensive use of van Dijk ? Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 13:08, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Which one? - the article references Anthonie van Dijk and Kees van Dijk. Kees' book (which appears to be the most recent work to cover the battleships) was published by a university publishing house and is a scholarly work and Anthonie's three articles were published in a well regarded journal. The articles are also given as a reference for further reading in the well regarded book The eclipse of the big gun: the warship 1906-1945. I obtained both the book and the journal articles from the collections of leading Australian universities. As such, they've both very reliable sources if that's your concern. While the sourcing is, unfortunately, relatively narrow, that's mainly due to there being not much coverage of this proposal in English-language sources. Both the van Dijk's are Dutch, so it seems reasonable to assume that they've drawn on all the key Dutch-language sources (which also appear to be limited judging from the references they provide - both have mainly used primary sources). Nick-D (talk) 10:53, 24 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Support, with a caution: the image of SMS Kaiser, on wide screen resolutions at least (eg 1440px wide), interferes with the infobox to create a notable blank space at the top of the "Proposal" section. Otherwise, no complaints, a great article that's ready for prime-time. - The Bushranger (talk) 05:07, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks a lot. For what its worth, it looks fine on my 24" monitor Nick-D (talk) 10:53, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.