Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Operation Crossroads/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 not promoted by SandyGeorgia 14:44, 15 November 2009.

Operation Crossroads

 * Nominator(s): raeky, HowardMorland

I am nominating this for featured article because... I feel it is a strong article and meets all FA criteria. It has gone through a peer review and all issues raised with peer review resolved. — raeky ( talk 15:13, 28 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Was consulted on this nomination, per WP:FAC instructions?  If not, the nominationn should be withdrawn.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 15:23, 28 October 2009 (UTC)


 * He asked me to nominate it after completing the changes from the peer review. — raeky ( talk 15:28, 28 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks, Raeky: that clears that up :) Should he be listed as a co-nom, and will he be following the FAC?  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 15:30, 28 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I assume, not sure how to do it though. — raeky ( talk 15:33, 28 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I will add his name, if you confirm that he is participating in the FAC. Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 15:35, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Comment This is an impressive piece of work, but the disussion at Talk:Operation_Crossroads may indicate a clash between "Truth", and "Verifiability" by external reliable sources. Kablammo (talk) 15:48, 28 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I will be glad to pursue this further. However, I am pretty sure the only external reliable source (in the form of a living expert) is author Jim Delgado, who has changed his mind since he last published on this subject in 1991. It also seems to me that the video which convinced Delgado, and me, is also an external reliable source. The dark object standing free of the water column is clearly not a break in the water column, as Delgado thought when he saw the still picture and video shots from a different angle. The Internet has made available new information that was not available to experts just a few years ago. HowardMorland (talk) 02:52, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Comment (I haven't had time yet to study it enough to support, but leaning that way). I really enjoyed reading this so it fits the "engaging" requirement for FAC. There are some US weights and measures that could do with a metric equivalent (e.g. "about two pounds of fission products", "11.6 pounds of plutonium", not all the "feet" are in metres too). The statement "A percentage of each group working in less contaminated areas was badged." could do with saying what percentage or else admitting it is vague and using a term like"A small number of" or "Only some of". I found the handful of parenthetical sentences to be odd to my eyes. Is this an American thing? One of them isn't a sentence "(Harry K. Daghlian, Jr. and Louis Slotin)". My own citation style is that the footnote ref covers the preceding text in the paragraph. Here there are some ends-of-paragraphs or some whole paragraphs that appear uncited. Many of these contain facts that I'd prefer were cited. Given the comments above about some original research, I'm worried, for instance, that the comments on the "1989 diver's sketch of the wreck [of the Arkansas ]" are original rather than sourced. Is there anything else in this article that has been "discovered" by editors looking at photos and sketches? Can you confirm that "shot" is the term used for the explosion rather than for photographs of the explosion? Refs 6 and 52 need more citation details (publisher, date, access date, etc). Is ref 13 a web link or a book ref with a convenience link to a copy of the text. If a book ref, it covers page 40 and 91 which seem odd if that can be turned into one web page? A book ref needs an ISBN. That's all for now. Colin°Talk 19:38, 30 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Ref 13 is three different things: an essay posted on the web, and two different pages from a book unrelated to the web essay. Refs 6 and 52 come from Jack Niedenthal's website http://www.bikiniatoll.com/ He is a Harrisburg Pennsylvania native and former Peace Corps volunteer who married a Bikini islander, lives in the Marshall Islands, and now represents the Bikini people to the U.S. government. Johathan Wiesgall, a Washington, DC, lawyer who works with Niedenthal vouches for him, but says that much of Niedenthal's information comes from his (Weisgall's) own 1994 book, which would be a better source to cite. I was unaware of this book, but I will have a copy soon. For what it's worth, Weisgall says he has never doubted that the dark object in the Baker picture is the silhouette of the upended battleship Arkansas. I don't know if he puts that conclusion in his book. The diver's sketch is referenced to p 95 of Delgado's book (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Battleship_Arkansas_diver_sketch.png) where it is also described in text. HowardMorland (talk) 02:48, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Note: there are footnotes in section headings (per MOS section headings should have no special markup). Sandy Georgia (Talk) 20:42, 30 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Where should those footnotes go? In the peer review, User:Finetooth complained that the footnotes were floating under the table, so I put them in the titles of the sections. How about in the titles of the tables, instead? HowardMorland (talk) 01:39, 31 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Non-breaking spaces are needed between numbers and units (sample edit), and as Colin said above, many measurements need conversions. Dabomb87 (talk) 02:41, 31 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Comments -
 * Current ref 6 (Jack Niedenthal..) has the author and title run into the link title. They should be separated out. Also needs publisher and last access date information. And what makes this a reliable soruce?
 * Current ref 13 (Cunningham...) has the title run into the link title and lacks a publisher and last access date.
 * I'm not sure how to do this. Is ref 13 fixed now? HowardMorland (talk) 04:29, 9 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Decide if you're going to use Last name first or first name first with your authors and stick with one style.
 * In refs, the first time each author appears, full name with first name first; subsequent citations, last name only. I think I got them all. HowardMorland (talk) 23:24, 9 November 2009 (UTC)


 * What makes http://www.bikiniscience.com/chronology/1945-1950_SS/LR4601_S/LR4601.html a reliable source?
 * Otherwise, sources look okay, links checked out with the link checker tool. I took the liberty of doing a few small tweaks and running the dash script on the article. Ealdgyth - Talk 16:35, 3 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Comments I have started a line-by-line review on the article's talk page (link). Please respond to concerns there. I usually review science articles, but I think this will be a fun change of pace! --Cryptic C62 · Talk 00:47, 7 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Notes: the article mixes spaced WP:ENDASHes (in the section headings) with spaced WP:EMDASHes in the text.  See WP:DASH; emdashes are never spaced on Wiki.  The article should consistently use either unspaced emdashes or spaced endashes.  External links might need pruning per WP:EL, and some of the "See also" might be incorporated into the article, per WP:LAYOUT.  Also, I believe the use of #xx has been replaced by No. xx per MOS; pls check.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 21:50, 7 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Dashes are fixed. Dabomb87 (talk) 22:34, 7 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Comment There is a dead link; check the toolbox at the top right. Dabomb87 (talk) 05:26, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Fixed HowardMorland (talk) 07:35, 10 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Image comments
 * File:Operation Crossroads Baker.jpg - source?
 * A "source" for these images may be very difficult, they're works of the government. — raeky ( talk 08:14, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
 * File:USS Texas BB-35 aircastle.jpg this image and its deriv are missing source info
 * The deriv source is self made, thus doesn't need a source (uploader created it). — raeky ( talk 08:14, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, we do, because there's no source info for the original. Derivative works need their copyright verified like everything else. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ( talk ) 02:19, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
 * The source image has camera metadata, is a high resolution and is an image a Wikipedian would reasonably be expected to have been able to take. I've asked the original uploader to confirm that they are indeed the author, as is likely the case (but Herr Fuchs is correct that provenance for derivatives needs to check out).  Эlcobbola  talk 03:22, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
 * File:AbleLarge.jpg - author info?
 * I'm doubting this is a DOE work, most likely US Navy or US Army, but again finding the real source may be very difficult. — raeky ( talk 08:14, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Notice that the foreground objects are the same as in the big picture of Baker taken three weeks later. Both pictures were obviously taken by remote control from the same camera tower on Bikini Island. There were no news photographers, or any other people, that close to the explosions. Joint Task Force I (Army and Navy) obviously took the picture. It may have been inherited by DoE later. HowardMorland (talk) 00:40, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Visual evidence isn't enough. We need sources and actual, clear citations that these are the works of branches of the armed forces. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ( talk ) 02:19, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
 * FYI: The source credits the photo to the Federation of American Scientists ("The photograph of Able, the color      photograph of Baker, and the two video clips are courtesy the Federation of American Scientists"), which is not a federal government entity.  What is the factual basis for claiming this is a DoE work?  Эlcobbola  talk 02:48, 13 November 2009 (UTC) -- Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ( talk ) 03:05, 12 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Comments: In additon to Herr Fuchs' comments above:
 * File:G702126.jpg - Needs a verifiable source per WP:IUP
 * A link to the image on its Navy website has been added to the file description. HowardMorland (talk) 04:07, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
 * File:Crossroads baker explosion.jpg - Needs a verifiable source ("Image courtesy of US Govt. Defense Threat Reduction Agency" is a credit. From what website was this taken?  From what book was it scanned?  What is the archive in which it is located?  What is its identifier?  How else can we verify the license?)  http://www.dtra.mil/priv.html, by the way, is a dead link.  Эlcobbola  talk 02:51, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Comments
 * Shurcliffe listed as author for "Bombs at Bikini", but "Operation Crossroads" by Shurcliffe is cited under "Historian". Reason for discrepancy?
 * It's a mystery. I just copied the information off the publisher's pages of the books. HowardMorland (talk) 13:17, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Delgado book sometimes cited as "Archeology of the Atomic Bomb" and sometimes as "Archeology". Reason for inconsistency?
 * I shortened titles after their first mention. HowardMorland (talk) 13:17, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Here's an idea. References in the King Arthur article are divided into footnotes and a bibliography. The footnote references show author and year, linked to the appropriate bibliography item, and a page number. That would answer all the questions about consistent format, but I haven't seen done elsewhere. HowardMorland (talk) 17:32, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Footnotes 3 and 4 send the reader to internal links that send the reader to sections of the article. I've never seen this kind of jumping around before. Have you wandered the maze that is MOS for verification that this practice is kosher? I don't know what others think; they seem to me like something that could just be removed. But it is also mostly harmless, and could probably just be left alone.
 * Someone requested footnotes for statements in the article's initial summary. Since the issues were explained in detail, and documented, in the body of the article, it seemed logical to send the reader there. I have raised this issue at the Village Pump, without satisfactory result. In some articles, this matter is handled by clustering footnotes in the summary. That seems unattractive and not helpful to the reader. HowardMorland (talk) 13:17, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
 * What is this: Jack Niedenthal, "A Short History of the People of Bikini Atoll."
 * I am in the process of redoing that on the basis of an actual book. HowardMorland (talk) 13:17, 13 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Ling.Nut (talk) 06:55, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.