Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/HMAS Melbourne (R21)


 * 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 16:13, 20 March 2008.

HMAS Melbourne (R21)
Self-nomination. I feel that this article on the Australian aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne is ready for a run at FAC.

The article is comprehensive, covering the entire history of the ship from design planning to scrapping. All of the information if factually accurate, and is verified against the reliable published sources listed in the References section. The article is neutral, and in regards to stability, the only edits I can forsee are spelling, grammar, and phrasing fixes. It follows the style guidelines for lead section, section layout, and consistent citation use, as well as meeting the WP:Manual of Style. All of the images are of acceptable legal status, with no non-free images included. The article is pushing the upper limit for length, but I feel that none of the information present can be removed without compromising the comprehensive nature of the article.

The article has undergone a peer review and A-class assesment, both by the Military History wikiproject. -- saberwyn 02:17, 15 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Comments Sources look good


 * Support—Who wrote this? If it's family members, ex-naval personal, they've created a fitting memorial to those who died. There are probably still little issues here and there, but I noticed only these on a quick run-through.
 * Consider providing a 2008 equivalent of 2.47M Australian pounds from 60 years ago. Doesn't mean much without, and if monetary sums are an issue during the history of the vessel (they are), it would be nice to have a benchmark, such as 2008 dollars. See MOS on currencies.
 * "72 foot 7 inch (22.12 m)" et al.—metrics first, please.
 * "A Sea King Mk 50 of HS 817 Squadron Shark 09 takes off, 1980"—This caption has a verb on the uppermost level, so is a real sentence and requires a final period. See MOS.
 * Quotation: "Please be advised that HMAS Melbourne arrived at Port Huangpu, intact and safely afloat, proud and majestic. She has been innocent, never once bowed to the natural or human force, in spite of the heavy storm and the talked about jinx"—should there be punctuation at the end? Or ellipsis dots?
 * Many house styles require "et al." to be italicised. Me, I'd slightly prefer not, but don't care that much. I'm sure MOS will end up allowing either. Tony   (talk)  09:15, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
 * My grandfather served aboard this vessel in the early 1960s, prior to the two collisions. He was one of the victims of 'the jinx', when he fell and broke his back in mid 1963. As for your comments: struck when completed
 * Currency benchmarks - I'll get back to you on that one, although I do have a question. Will this figure need to be updated every year, to maintain a benchmark relevant to the readers?
 * And after looking at, I realise I don't know where to begin in arriving at a 2008 AU$ figure for the various sums of money mentioned in the article. Any assistance ould be appreciated. -- saberwyn 09:58, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Good question: I found this at the ABS site (CPI - Consumer Price Index - G2), but only back to September 1969, showing a ninefold reduction in the purchasing power of the currency. We need stats from further back. . Ah, earlier is here: . I googled . You might let WikiProject Australia know if you find the data, since many Australian articles need to provide this equivalent. I think there's no need to update it regularly, as long as there's an equivalent with a reasonably modern point of time. Perhaps after five years, someone might do the honours. And did I say how good the article is? Well done. Tony   (talk)  11:48, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I'll have a go. I make no promises on success, but I'll have a go. -- saberwyn 09:48, 18 March 2008 (UTC) Update: I've got the figures and some sample working from RefDesk Mathematics, so I'll hopefully have something in the next day or two. -- saberwyn 21:21, 18 March 2008 (UTC) Update: I've converted all the post 1969 values in userspace, and as soon as I finish the others, I'll move them into the article. One problem though, the figure you specifically requeted for the original 1947 purchase price is beyond even the second set of data you've given, which starts in 1950. I'll try to find older figures, but this will be hard. -- saberwyn 03:45, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Update: All converted figures have been placed in the article, and have been appropriately nbsp'ed. There is one exception... the original 1947 purchase price. The online-available Australian Bureau of Statisics CPI data (which was used to calculate the conversions), does not go back that far, and a hidden note has been added to the article while this difficult-to-find figure is sought. -- saberwyn 02:15, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
 * The use of imperial measurement came about because all of the sources that really focus on her were written in the early 1980s, either before or at the same time as Australia began converting to the metric system. Should be easy to fix.
 * Two instances, the Tracker's wingspan in the "Modifications during construction" section, and the guns on Voyager in the "Voyager collision" section, have both been converted to metric with imperial in brackets. -- saberwyn 09:49, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Will fix the caption. -- saberwyn 09:39, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Should be a full stop at the end of the quotation, both in the body and the footnotes. Easy fixed. -- saberwyn 09:39, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Whatever happens, happens. Will be easy to change if necessary. -- saberwyn 09:29, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I see you dropped by and fixed up a few en dashes. Thank you. I can never seem to get dashes and hyphens and other horizontal lines right, no matter how many times I read the relevant part of the MOS. -- saberwyn 09:39, 15 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Support A great article which meets the criteria. As a note, conversions of amounts of money across periods of 60 years are very imprecise and should be avoided unless they're really needed, in my opinion. As the cost of ships has changed at a different rate than the cost of the items used in the consumer price index, it would be missleading to use the level of inflation over 60 years to convert Melbourne's price into 2008 dollars and I doubt any better index is available - unless figures are available from a reliable source, trying to work it out ourselves would be original research. --Nick Dowling (talk) 10:52, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
 * But really 2.4 million pounds from the forties does need some kind of equivalent, or it may as well not be cited at all. I see nothing wrong with a generalised "all-group" CPI factor, which still gives readers an idea of how much in general could be bought with that sum. Tony   (talk)  11:50, 16 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Support. Excellent article. Cla68 (talk) 11:34, 15 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Support. Strong on detail, organisation, illustrations, references and style - what more could you want? Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 13:03, 15 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Support This is exactly the kind of article I would right on a carrier if I was right for the carrier articles here. Evidently you took careful measure of the suggestions left on the both the peer review and A-class review pages. Well Done! TomStar81 (Talk) 22:03, 15 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Support The change to the lead, hashed out below, resolved my only issue by removing the 'blame' sentence. Maralia (talk) 14:43, 20 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Support – Excellent comprehensive article.--Grahame (talk) 02:11, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Support - Excellent. Very thorough referencing, as with the Attack on Sydney Harbour. Another meticulous piece of work.  Blnguyen  ( vote in the photo straw poll ) 05:11, 17 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Support -- R OGER D AVIES  talk 06:15, 20 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Note: this article needs a lot of trivial MoS cleanup.  I left sample edits; perhaps  can be enticed back, as he used to catch all of this, and even fix it himself.  Also, something seems off in this sentence (hyphen somewhere?):
 * At 9:58 pm, Melbourne was informed that five Ton class minesweepers, search ...

Sandy Georgia (Talk) 15:09, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure where you mean. Maybe you're saying that "Ton-class" needs to be hypenated, but searching the RAN website does not demonstrate a single instance of hyphen use. -- saberwyn 21:21, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
 * For SandyGeorgia: The sentence lists three resources despatch to help, the ton class minesweepers, the search and rescue boats from Creswell and helos from HMAS Albatross (NAS Nowra).  I suspect you a mis-reading the clause about the S&R boats as being descriptive of the Ton class minesweepers.  I suggest we resolve this by changing the order of the clauses to remove any confusion.  I will do this now.  Nick Thorne  talk  22:22, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Sample edits, encompassing WP:NBSP, WP:MOSDATE, WP:MOSNUM, conversions, WP:GTL, endashes, and WP:MOS (punctuation). Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 15:17, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your MOS fixes so far. I will try to go through and get as many more fixed as possible. Also, the conversions you asked for in hidden notes have been made: square metres and square yards for the acre, metres for the yards. -- saberwyn 20:52, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I've looked through, and most of the stuff you picked up appears to be the single instance of it being missed. I've nbsp'ed (or alternately nowraped) every measurement, time, and financial figure I can find (with the exclusion of the yet-to-be-added 2007 values for each figure requested above by Tony1, but that'll be done when I complete and insert the figures). Dates are all validly formatted, except where there is a date range. MOSNUM appears to be complied with. Conversions are done. The placement of the Commons link is something I was always unsure about... I know now. Endashes appear to be done (except where part of a wikilink to an article title with a hyphen). The captions all appear to comply, and the one you changed was one Tony1 asked me to put punctuation in above, so I don't know what's going on anymore there.
 * I make these statements with the following caveat: I have been staring at this article since October last year. By this point, my eyes could probably fail to see a small misplaced frigate. Verification of MOS compliance by a set of fresh peepers would be excellent. -- saberwyn 05:26, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Saberwyn; are Roger Davies' issues satisfied ? Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 15:25, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Still working on it. -- saberwyn 20:42, 19 March 2008 (UTC) Roger Davies appears happy, so I'd say yes. -- saberwyn 07:16, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Comment by Saberwyn: One of the major problems so far appears to be the wording of the lead section in relation to the two collisions. The wording in the article is currently "However, she was involved in two major collisions with allied vessels. On the evening of 10 February 1964, Melbourne collided with and sank HMAS Voyager when the Daring class destroyer altered course across her bow. Eighty-two of Voyager’s crew were killed, and two Royal Commissions were held to investigate the incident. The second collision occurred in the early morning of 3 June 1969, when Melbourne collided with and sank the Allen M. Sumner class destroyer USS Frank E. Evans in similar circumstances. Seventy-four United States Navy (USN) personnel were killed, and a joint USN–RAN Board of Inquiry was held. Melbourne was initially found to be partly at fault for both collisions, but was later cleared of any blame."

That last sentance appears to be causing all kinds of grief, for what I assume to be the following reasons:
 * Although Australian sources say the carrier was cleared of blame, the second collision was an international incident, and no word has been laid down in a non-Australian reliable source on the blame or blamelessness of the carrier in the Evans collision (at least not in any source I can find)
 * Should be replaced with "Melbourne's captain": This would be incorrect, as in the Voyager collision the entire bridge crew was found at fault in the first Royal Commission, and all were cleared at the second Royal Commission. Also, if we specify that the captain was cleared, people are going to assume (incorrectly) that Other Melbourne Crewman/Officer X was found at fault and blamed for everything.

Suggested alternatives have been: Responses will be appreciated. -- saberwyn 23:37, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Changing the focus to the legal aspect - A possibility, but although the collisions were 'responsible' for the only occurance of two Royal Commissions in Australian history, and possibly the only ever joint RAN-USN Board of Inquiry (although this is not mentioned in the article as I have no source confirming on denying this fact), they were short (not including the political and public ranting that occurred between the first and second Voyager collision, two were either biased or flawed in their investgation (the first Royal Commission, and depending on the national origin of the source, the Joint BoI), and there was no specific legal action charging anyone for the Voyager collision (people were blamed, but the RAN took no action except to cold-shoulder Robertson). Too many caveats, in my opinion.
 * Drop the sentance entirely, and retool the paragraph to work without it


 * Here's my two decimal units. One problem comes from tying the two incidents together succinctly in a way that doesn't happen in the body of the article. Another arises as a result of synecdoche, the honourable acquittal of the captain for negligence does not equate to complete exoneration of the vessel and the entire crew for everything. A further problem is whether the emphasis on exoneration is undue weight. Finally, it's clear that some blame did attach (rightly or wrongly) to the two skippers as their careers were ruined. The difficulties in the lead come from trying to say too much: I have no quibbles with the corresponding text in the body of the article at all. I suggest that the lead is simplified. -- R OGER D AVIES  talk 00:13, 20 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Would simplifying by dropping the problem line be adequate? I'm working on a slight tweak to the intro in userspace... the new paragraph reads:

Melbourne never fired a shot in anger during her career, having only peripheral, non-combat roles in the Indonesia–Malaysia confrontation and the Vietnam War. However, she was involved in two major collisions with allied vessels. On the evening of 10 February 1964, Melbourne collided with and sank HMAS Voyager when the Daring class destroyer altered course across her bow. Eighty-two of Voyager’s crew were killed, and two Royal Commissions were held to investigate the incident. The second collision occurred in the early morning of 3 June 1969, when Melbourne collided with and sank the Allen M. Sumner class destroyer USS Frank E. Evans in similar circumstances. Seventy-four United States Navy (USN) personnel were killed, and a joint USN–RAN Board of Inquiry was held. These incidents, along with several minor collisions, shipboard accidents, and aircraft losses, led to the reputation that Melbourne was jinxed.


 * Solution? -- saberwyn 00:58, 20 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes! No problems with that at all. (And earlier comment changed to support.) -- R OGER D AVIES   talk 06:15, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
 * New and improved intro (sans blame sentance) is now in the article. -- saberwyn 07:14, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
 * ...Uh, yeah I have problem with that: according to english rules the sentence should have a semi-colon if useing however. Therefore, the sentence should look like this: "Melbourne never fired a shot in anger during her career, having only peripheral, non-combat roles in the Indonesia–Malaysia confrontation and the Vietnam War; However, she was involved in two major collisions with allied vessels." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.198.83.183 (talk • contribs)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.