Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/SMS Kaiserin/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 GrahamColm 11:55, 25 December 2012.

SMS Kaiserin

 * Nominator(s): Parsecboy (talk) 16:03, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Another German battleship, I wrote this article about 2 years ago, and it's been waiting in the queue for quite some time, as I slowly grind my way toward the 50% requirement to upgrade this from a Good Topic to a Featured one. I feel this article is at or close to FA standards, and I look forward to working with reviewers in ensuring this article represents Wikipedia's best work. Thanks to all who take the time to review the article. Parsecboy (talk) 16:03, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Support on prose per standard disclaimer. I've looked at the changes made since I reviewed this for A-class. These are my edits. (Edits may take days to show up on that page.) P.S. Good semester I hope? - Dank (push to talk) 22:14, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks Dan, all look fine to me. And it's good now that it's over ;) Parsecboy (talk) 11:16, 9 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Comment – was the ship named for a specific empress? Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 15:47, 4 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Presumably for Kaiser Willy's wife, but I haven't seen anything specific (Kaiser was named for the first, not second, btw). Parsecboy (talk) 11:16, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Source review - spotchecks not done
 * Comments
 * Lots of passive voice.
 * Explosions are not "massive"
 * Good point, fixed.
 * Thanks.--MarchOrDie (talk) 06:26, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Don't like "smothered"; is there a better word? --MarchOrDie (talk) 20:33, 4 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I kinda like it, but am not wedded to the word - do you (or anyone else) have any ideas? Parsecboy (talk) 11:16, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
 * "The two ships then proceeded to Kiel via Danzig, where they transited the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal back to the North Sea." I know that the canal is in Kiel, but it might look to a less well-informed reader like it was in Danzig. Can you clarify this? --MarchOrDie (talk) 06:26, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Should be clearer now. Parsecboy (talk) 01:16, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
 * A week on, there is still too much passive voice for a Featured Article. It's the main reason I would not currently support this candidate. --MarchOrDie (talk) 21:39, 16 December 2012 (UTC)
 * "Kaiserin and most of the capital ships of the High Seas Fleet were interned by the Royal Navy in Scapa Flow" doesn't need to be in passive voice, and there are probably other sentences that could be rewritten. - Dank (push to talk) 02:41, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Some of the passive voice is useful - for example, the clause on Nomad and Nestor "which had been disabled earlier in the engagement" or the line starting with "Repairs were conducted at the" elide generally useless information (namely, the irrelevant actors in both situations - it's not helpful to, in the second case, say "Dockyard workers effected the repairs...") and keeps the narrative focused on Kaiserin. I have made some changes in wording elsewhere - see if it's better now. Parsecboy (talk) 20:03, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Be consistent in whether you abbreviate page ranges
 * Why link NYC but not Annapolis or London? Nikkimaria (talk) 04:17, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Both fixed, thanks Nikki. Parsecboy (talk) 11:16, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Images: check out. The Albion image was published outside the US before 1923, so is arguably public domain but for some technical legal reasons owing to the WMF move to San Fransisco, there might be trouble brewing on that and the CC-BY-SA licence is perfectly sufficient. I know Dan's had a look, and the prose is good, but The bulk of the High Seas Fleet was to have sortied from their base in Wilhelmshaven to engage the British Grand Fleet; Scheer—by now the Grand Admiral (Großadmiral) of the fleet—intended to inflict as much damage as possible on the British navy, to improve Germany's bargaining position, despite the expected casualties. But many of the war-weary sailors felt that the operation would disrupt the peace process and prolong the war. struck me as a bit odd. The first sentence feels like it keeps running on, clause after clause, and I personally disapprove of the second sentence starting "but" but assume this is for interest/to be more engaging. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 17:11, 9 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Huh, I didn't know WMF moved to San Francisco - but in any case, the Albion photo is from the Bundesarchiv donation, so it's fine either way. I split the first sentence, as it is a bit long (perhaps writing on German topics is making me write overly-long, complicated sentences. If only we had split verbs in English). Parsecboy (talk) 20:03, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
 * It's not entirely clear meta:Wikilegal/The 9th Circuit and Works Published Without Formalities but as I say CC-BY-SA is course sufficient, it's just occasionally it's useful to disregard people's claim of copyright and understand that the file is actually PD. Not a physical move to SF, by the way (that happened for WMF staff in 2007, IIRC) but more a case of whether Wikipedia's content is legally in Florida, where the servers are, or, following the new Terms of Use, in SF (where the WMF is). Potentially huge unresolved issues. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 11:44, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
 * That has to be one of the stupidest legal decisions I've ever heard, though I like the smart-ass comment about returning Greek classics to copyright. In any case, I wasn't aware of the move to SF - are there any significant differences between Florida and California? I'm guessing there are, since there's apparently potential problems - is there a link you can point me to for my own clarification? Parsecboy (talk) 01:16, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Of course it's stupid, particularly the uncertainty. I think we could live with pre-1923 becoming pre-1909. Anyway, I'm not sure what your query is, but in case you didn't know, SF is on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, Florida isn't - unless adopted by the courts on Florida's circuit, Twin Books v. Walt Disney will apply only the the 9th circuit. If you want some more specific answer, please do ask on my talk page. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 22:02, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Oh, ok, I didn't know that the 9th Circuit ruling didn't apply everywhere. Thanks for clearing that up. Parsecboy (talk) 16:15, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Support and hello again, glad to see you are still writing! A few minor issues that will be easy fixes: Well done as always. Maralia (talk) 05:20, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
 * The second paragraph of the lead could use a bit of tweaking to avoid the use of 'also' in two consecutive sentences.
 * The commissioning date in the lead differs from that in the infobox and body of the article.
 * Also in the lead, the chronological flow is a bit disrupted where the scuttling is described as happening "days before the treaty was signed". Since the treaty wasn't signed until a week later, and the ships were to have been seized on the 23rd, I don't think the phrase really adds to the explanation anyway; think it could be dropped?
 * Thanks, Maralia - who would have guessed I'd still be around doing these articles five years after you invited me to join WP:SHIPS?
 * "also" -> "later"
 * Must've been a typo
 * Sure, that's fine by me. Thanks for reviewing the article, Maralia! Parsecboy (talk) 01:16, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Hah, I had forgotten how I 'found' you. Crazy :) Maralia (talk) 02:28, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Yup, so we could say this is all your fault ;) Parsecboy (talk) 11:46, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Comments
 * Infobox:
 * I have to point out the namesake is uncited but its the Kaiser-class, (again!), and I'm 99% sure its right. I'll look into it.
 * The Designed displacement is uncited
 * The propulsion doesn't really match the cited prose (I was confused by 3-shaft vs. 3 sets); the horsepower is uncited.
 * Consider changing Crew to Complement, add citation.

Support Another excellent addition. Kirk (talk) 17:39, 21 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Was Kurt Grasshoff always the commander? He needs a red link.
 * In Jutland, I think she only scored one hit out of 300+ attempts? Maybe you could summarize that in the end of the section.
 * The last paragraph of Operation Albion I thought could be shortened into a single sentence.
 * I think it would be more clear to name the Second Battle of Heligoland Bight so the reader doesn't have to click through.
 * The ship participated in the fruitless advance to Norway on 23–25 April 1918 - I don't happen to know what this is (or why it was fruitless); does this operation have a name?
 * Parsecboy, another good addition to the series. Kirk (talk) 22:02, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks for checking on the namesake issue.
 * Rüger didn't have anything; she already had two ships named after her (SMS Kaiserin Augusta, Augusta_Victoria_(ship)).
 * Added a citation for the designed displacement
 * Each set of turbines drove a shaft - is it clearer now?
 * Yes, thanks.
 * Done.
 * No, Grasshoff wasn't always the commander (there's a list of her commanders on the German wiki if you're curious)
 * Karl Sievers was at Jutland so he needs to be in there somewhere. I'll check on the other two.
 * Hmm, I can't find a good citation for him - do you happen to know of one?
 * Nevermind, he's mentioned in Scheer's book. Parsecboy (talk) 13:43, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I did find some citations and all of the commanders retired as flag officers; the two mentioned are probably enough. Kirk (talk) 17:42, 21 December 2012 (UTC)
 * It's somewhat unclear, given the nature of the destruction of Defence - she may have scored hits there that were not recorded.
 * I just thought one of those Jutland sources might be a little clearer with this sort of thing.
 * No, unfortunately they only record hits sustained, not which ship inflicted them, unless there is clear evidence.
 * Good suggestion, removed the Easter egg link
 * No, there's no name for the operation - would you prefer more details on it? There's nothing specific to Kaiserin so I left most of it out.
 * Its probably enough to explain the purpose of the operation so the reader knows why it was fruitless etc.
 * Ok, I added a bit to explain what the goal was and what went wrong.
 * Thanks for reviewing the article, Kirk. Parsecboy (talk) 01:16, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
 * You're welcome. Kirk (talk) 22:41, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Support I reviewed the article for A-class and I'm satisfied it's continued to see improvements to prose since then. I saw a few minor things and corrected them. The only thing worth mentioning here, "officers and men" implies the officers are not men. I have fixed this on several ship articles at FAC, GAN and A-class reviews. — Ed! (talk) 13:50, 15 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Your change, "officers and enlisted men", works for me. - Dank (push to talk) 14:26, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Delegate note -- just a formatting nitpick, some of the refs include OCLCs and some don't, but I'd expect pretty well all have them; myself I don't include OCLC unless there's no ISBN, but if you're going to include any OCLCs you may as well include them all for consistency. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 23:06, 21 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't usually use them either - I think they crept in when Br' Rabbit updated the ref style. Thanks Ian. Parsecboy (talk) 23:18, 21 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Okay, cool. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 09:59, 22 December 2012 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.