Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/LIM-49 Nike Zeus/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 archived by Laser brain via FACBot (talk) 19:08, 7 February 2015 (UTC).

LIM-49 Nike Zeus

 * Nominator(s): Maury Markowitz (talk) 21:47, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

This article is about the US's first concerted effort to build and deploy an anti-ballistic missile system. It faced enormous hurdles as the nature of the ICBM threat changed more rapidly than it could be developed. By the time it entered final testing in 1962, it was clear the system was essentially useless.

The missile is interesting, but the overarching story is even more interesting. While researching the article, I came across formerly secret documents discussing the effectiveness of the Zeus system. Lacking Zeus, they predicted that the Soviets would kill 95% of the US population in a full-scale exchange. Zeus would reduce that to only 75%. They concluded it simply wasn't worth building - why bother spending $10 to $12 billion saving a few million civilians?

Zeus eventually died, and was replaced by a way more complex system, Nike-X. Nike-X entered into a race with even more ICBMs. Rinse, repeat - Sentinel, Safeguard, Sentry, SDI... I find the Zeus story to be a wonderful microcosm of the entire Cold War era debate about megadeaths and guns and butter.

Plus it has some super-cool color pictures of missile launches.

Maury Markowitz (talk) 21:47, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Comments - Dank (push to talk)
 * There's only one comment so far at WT:MIL, and that comment may or may not support splitting the article in two. Not my call. - Dank (push to talk) 21:16, 24 January 2015 (UTC)
 * "the US raced to close this "missile gap".": Please see the linked article. There was no actual missile gap, and none of the relevant US policymakers believed there was; it was nothing more than an often-repeated lie. Maybe you're clear about this in your article, I haven't checked, but someone reading your lead is most likely to walk away with the opposite impression. - Dank (push to talk) 04:01, 26 January 2015 (UTC)


 * The first of these items was already decided, and the section in question was removed. It will form the basis of a new article, but the Nike-X one comes first.
 * As to the second, I wrote that one too. Yes, the gap was fictional, but that didn't stop the US from racing to fill it. And it didn't stop them from building thousands of bombers to fill the "bomber gap", nor getting afraid of a sneak attack in the 80s. We know the Soviets also suffered from similar issues, especially when they concluded the US was planning a sneak attack in 1983 due to the number of Dominoes Pizzas being delivered to the Pentagon (there's no way I could make that up). Maury Markowitz (talk) 20:45, 26 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Now opposing. This is a stopper for me. - Dank (push to talk) 18:13, 28 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Sorry, what is a show-stopper for you? Do you refer to the "missile gap" issue? If so, can you explain precisely what it is you feel is the problem?  Maury Markowitz (talk) 18:45, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Someone reading your lead is most likely to walk away with the opposite impression, that there was a missile gap: "the Soviets claimed to be building hundreds of missiles, and the US raced to close this "missile gap". Building more Zeus' to match the Soviet fleet would be expensive ...". How could they "match the Soviet fleet" if there was no missile gap? You may be taking your quote marks as scare quotes, but a reader could just as easily interpret them as an actual quote. Btw, the plural of "Zeus" is either "Zeuses" (ugh) or "Zeus missiles". - Dank (push to talk) 19:18, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I just looked at the diffs at missile gap ... thanks for your great work on that one. - Dank (push to talk) 20:37, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Ahhh, I see what you're getting at now. Try that. Maury Markowitz (talk) 22:15, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Okay, not opposing. - Dank (push to talk) 23:27, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Oppose: Leaving aside for the moment the discussion of a potential article split, and associated length/coverage issues,
 * Sorry, what specifically are the length/coverage issues? Maury Markowitz (talk) 20:45, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I was referring to your comment at the WT:MILHIST discussion, but as I said, the potential split was not a consideration in my oppose
 * Understood, but I just wanted to be sure I wasn't missing anything. As I noted above, action was taken on that item.Maury Markowitz (talk) 20:53, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

I don't believe the article currently meets the other FA criteria. Specifically:
 * Images: File:NIKE_Zeus.jpg is tagged as lacking author info and is sourced to a dead link; other images with dead links; this site doesn't attribute its images AFAICT so sourcing to it cannot support licensing status
 * Williamson, who I've been talking to for some time to nail down the details in the article, provided these images. They were all made by US Army personnel of contractors during his time on the island. ORTS seems a little slow updating the pages to reflect that. The other "dead links" appear to refer to the ones from WSMR? Can you be more specific? Maury Markowitz (talk) 20:45, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
 * All the Redstone links are broken, as is one of the JFK Library links. Nikkimaria (talk) 06:53, 3 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry but I'm missing the point here. How is this an issue? I am unaware of any requirement over on the commons that images can only be placed there if one guarantees the link will exist for all time. Maury Markowitz (talk) 20:53, 5 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Prose: grammar and spelling mistakes (eg. "Inestead", "be developed for the both the warhead"), changes in tense (eg "the Report suggests" but then "they state" and then "they suggested"), awkward/unclear phrasing (eg "Having considered the stages of development of the various systems, the Air Force was told to stop work")
 * All addressed I believe. Maury Markowitz (talk) 20:45, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Those specific examples, yes, but not the issue generally - further examples include "better understanding of weapons effects" and "Two TTR's closest". Nikkimaria (talk) 06:53, 3 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Those too, now. Maury Markowitz (talk) 20:53, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

switches in variety of English (eg. "defense" but then "offence"), etc
 * This is due to editing on two machines, which insist on different spellings. My plan is to address content and MOS issues and then I will run one last spell check to convert everything to US before pushing. Maury Markowitz (talk) 20:45, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I have completed this change. Maury Markowitz (talk) 10:24, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Still mixing - eg. both defense and defence in the lead. Nikkimaria (talk) 06:53, 3 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Fixed. Any others? Maury Markowitz (talk) 20:53, 5 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Citation formatting: mix of templated and untemplated full citations; incomplete citations (eg FN16); missing italics on work titles; drawing citation details from the wrong place (eg. FN46, which is actually a republication of an earlier source); incorrect ordering on Bibliography; etc
 * All fixed.Maury Markowitz (talk) 20:45, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Not all fixed - FN46 from above, now FN45, is still drawing from the wrong place; further examples of problems include doubled italics on FN42 and an error in author name in FN83. Nikkimaria (talk) 06:53, 3 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I am not sure why there is a problem in FN42, it seems this is from the template itself. Can you see a problem with the template? I have re-cited FN45. I do not understand the issue with FN83? Maury Markowitz (talk) 20:53, 5 February 2015 (UTC)


 * MOS: MOS:ACCESS issues;
 * Can you be specific on this?Maury Markowitz (talk) 20:45, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
 * For example, you're using pseudoheadings in the References section. Nikkimaria (talk) 06:53, 3 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Interesting! I was under the impression there was no difference in end-text, which is why I used those. Fixed. Maury Markowitz (talk) 20:53, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

dash vs hyphen confusion;
 * Fixed. I compared with original sources for technical terms (surface-to-air, anti-missile) or Merriam-Webster for other examples. Should be good now. Maury Markowitz (talk) 12:26, 2 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Not yet - some phrases missing hyphens (eg. "18 month study"), some use of hyphens where there should be dashes (eg. FN 86). Nikkimaria (talk) 06:53, 3 February 2015 (UTC)
 * To save us both a lot of time, is there a tool that will complete these for me? Maury Markowitz (talk) 20:53, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

captions with periods that aren't complete sentences; etc
 * I believe you are referring to single instance in the infobox? If so I removed it. Are there any other examples you can find? Maury Markowitz (talk)
 * Yes, further examples include the graph and the Early detection image. Nikkimaria (talk) 06:53, 3 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Fixed. Maury Markowitz (talk) 20:53, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

You might consider running this through A-class review before FAC. Nikkimaria (talk) 23:15, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Coordinator note: This has been open for over two weeks with no declaration of support and outstanding opposition, so I will be archiving it shortly. I advise taking some time to work on the items noted and possibly pursuing an A-class review as Nikkimaria suggested. You are welcome to re-nominate after two weeks. -- Laser brain  (talk)  19:03, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

-- Laser brain  (talk)  19:08, 7 February 2015 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.