Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Russian battleship Poltava (1894)/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 Graham Colm 07:30, 17 May 2014.

Russian battleship Poltava (1894)

 * Nominator(s): Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 21:09, 11 April 2014 (UTC) and 

Poltava was one of five Russian battleships captured and put into service by the Imperial Japanese Navy after the Russo-Japanese War. She was sunk by land-based artillery during the Siege of Port Arthur in shallow water that allow the Japanese to refloat and repair her. Her only combat during World War I was during the siege of the German-owned port of Tsingtao. The Russians bought her back in 1916 and she had little to do in the White Sea in 1917–18. Her crew declared for the Bolsheviks in October, but they must have been pretty apathetic as the ship made no resistance when the British intervened in the early stages of the Russian Civil War in 1918. No longer seaworthy, they used her as a prison hulk before abandoning her in 1919 when they left North Russia. The Bolsheviks recaptured her in 1920, but just scrapped her in 1924. Buggie111 did the original work several years ago and I've expanded it with material from new sources. The article just passed a MilHist A-class review and should be in pretty good shape. But experience has shown me that something is always overlooked and I trust that reviewers will find any such infelicities as well as points that need to be clarified for non specialists.Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 21:09, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Signing on to this. Still alive, finals and capstone project kept me from getting online earlier. Buggie111 (talk) 14:45, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Image review
 * File:Russian_battleship_Poltava.jpg needs source, author date of death, and US PD tag. Same with File:Russian_Battleship_Poltava_sunk_in_Port_Arthur.jpg
 * First image replaced with a Swedish postcard.
 * File:Tango1908-1909.jpg needs US PD tag. Nikkimaria (talk) 22:48, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Done. Thanks for checking these out so quickly.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 00:01, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

Comments, leaning support
 * Description
 * "Poltava, however, reached a top speed of 16.29 knots (30.17 km/h; 18.75 mph) from 11,213 indicated horsepower (8,362 kW) during her sea trials. " I'm not sure the "however" is justified, a difference of .29 knots doesn't seem worth it. Perhaps "though"
 * Agreed, although rephrased a bit differently.
 * Construction
 * Is there any known reason for the delay between constructions and sea trials? Four years seems a bit long.
 * Russian shipyards were very inefficient during this time.
 * "to reduce their draft enough" is it draft or drafts under this situation?
 * I think it could go either way, but I also think that it should technically be plural.
 * Port Arthur
 * A further issue was the Russian failure to withdraw its troops from Manchuria in October 1903." Why was this a failure and why the specific month? They presumably did not withdraw their troops in September or November either.  Were they obliged to do so, or had they promised?
 * Promised.
 * "The ship participated in the action of 13 April …" The two clauses stating that Poltova, and Petropavlovsk each participated seems confusing and should more logically be combined into one.
 * See how it reads now.
 * More later.Wehwalt (talk) 09:44, 13 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I'll look forward to more helpful comments.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 03:35, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Resuming
 * "landed many of her 47 mm and 37 mm guns to reinforce the landward defenses " I would say "shore defenses" or similar to avoid the repetition.
 * "sortied in an attempt to escape to Vladivostok in the morning, around 07:00" I would rearrange to avoid the impression that "Vladivostok" and "morning" are related.
 * I read through the rest of it and didn't have anything, other than a couple of things I made directly. I see no reason in dragging out the inevitable.
 * Support. Good job.--Wehwalt (talk) 20:19, 15 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Done and thanks for your quick review.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 20:47, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

Support Comments  - I guess a few things can be overlooked even by the same reviewer ;)
 * A duplicate link weaseled its way into the lead since I reviewed it at ACR
 * It might be good to make clear that the abortive sortie to Vladivostok in June ended without combat
 * "They were intercepted by the Japanese fleet in what became the Battle of the Yellow Sea at 12:55." - this sounds like somebody coined the name "Battle of the Yellow Sea" at 12:55 - perhaps better to rework it as "The Japanese fleet intercepted the Russian ships at 12:55 in what became the Battle of the Yellow Sea" (and as a bonus, it drops the passive voice).
 * Excellent idea.
 * Linking "battleship" to Russian battleship Poltava (1911) might be a little WP:EGGy. Parsecboy (talk) 17:13, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Is it worth linking to the later ship at all? I think that the link to dreadnought is worth retaining, but I'm not sure that the link to the actual ship is? Thanks for the comments.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 21:03, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I usually do, especially if there's a significant connection between the naming of the vessels (as with my current FAC and the two subsequent cruisers). I don't generally link a later ship if there was no particular connection (for instance, with SMS Dresden (1907) and SMS Dresden (1917)) but I'd say that since this Poltava couldn't have her original name back because of the new Poltava, that's significant enough to warrant a link. You might simply change it to "given to the new dreadnought battleship Poltava so Tango was renamed..." That will also separate the links for dreadnought Poltava, which I know some people don't like. Parsecboy (talk) 12:09, 15 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Excellent idea, done.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 19:38, 15 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Everything looks good to me now, great work as usual. Parsecboy (talk) 12:58, 21 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Support, another example of Sturmvogel's excellent work. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 02:02, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Support on prose per standard disclaimer. These are my edits. - Dank (push to talk) 04:05, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Notes Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 10:18, 7 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Dab link for breeches
 * Pls seek a source review
 * Done and done.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 11:21, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Typo from Singora

1. Check ref 15: Wilmott, Hedley (2009). The Last Century of Sea Power: From Port Arthur to Chanak, 1894–1922.

1.1. RE: sustained hits at the waterline that crippled their maneuverability, preventing the Russian squadron from fleeing to Vladivostok. This ref is accurate.

1.2. However, the wiki article tells us that the Poltava was accompanied by the Tsesarevich; Wilmott spells this TSAREVICH. You have a typo, in other words.
 * This is a problem of transliterating the Russian Cyrillic alphabet into the Latin alphabet.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 14:06, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

2. RE: "After the Japanese victory in the First Sino-Japanese War of 1894–95, both Russia and Japan had ambitions to control Manchuria and Korea which naturally caused problems between them". Between who? I mean, who does "them" refer to?
 * Russia and Japan as they're the only actors in the sentence. Manchuria and Korea are acted upon in the sentence, so I don't think that this is ambiguous. However, if you can think of a better way to phrase the sentence, I'm all ears. Thanks for looking this over.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 14:06, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Singora (talk) 12:40, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Source review - spotchecks not done
 * Some of the infobox details do not appear to be sourced in the article, while others differ (for example, date of recapture by the Russians)
 * Gbooks links don't need access date, and the URL can be truncated after page number
 * Check alphabetization of Further reading. Nikkimaria (talk) 13:50, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks for checking these; I think that I've fixed everything.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 14:10, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

Graham Colm (talk) 06:34, 17 May 2014 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.