Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Sovetsky Soyuz class battleship/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 SandyGeorgia 22:23, 19 June 2010.

Sovetsky Soyuz class battleship

 * Nominator(s): Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 07:08, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

I am nominating this for featured article because I believe that it meets the five criteria. Dank was kind enough to copy-edit the article as part of the MILHIST A-class review. Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 07:08, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment—no dab links, no dead external links. Ucucha 10:31, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Sources issues Brianboulton (talk) 23:49, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Why is the Westwood book not included in the bibliography, along with the others?
 * Corrected.
 * Publisher information is missing from 10, 13, 15, 16 and 17.
 * Pu*Added.
 * Retrieval date missing from 10.
 * Fixed.
 * The sources themselves seem thoroughly reliable, but the article seems rather lightly cited (35 in all). There is also the issue of possible over-reliance on a single source; 27 of the cites are to one book.
 * If I'm using only a single source for an entire paragraph then I only reference it once, giving all relevant page numbers and note how many cites cover 3 or more pages. McLaughlin is the only source in English who's tapped into the Soviet material that became available post-Cold War, all others are based on Cold War-era sources which I don't consider reliable.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 00:45, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
 * That seems reasonable. Brianboulton (talk) 08:46, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Why should navweaps.com be considered a reliable source? It "is Owned and Operated by Tony DiGiulian". Who is Tony DiGiulian? -- Redtigerxyz Talk 10:23, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
 * See Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 14--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 04:59, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't agree with the reasoning there. First, the webpage citing sources, doesn't have it reliable, as here at Wikipedia and on school assignments, people also cite their textbooks. Secondly, merely being cited by a reliable source doesn't make something reliable, as academic books also cite blogs and primary source websites [as such] rather than as a reliable source in and of themselves (eg quoting the opinion of a person/group or simply using a primary source to build their own work). This is not to mention the FA criteria about "high quality" sources  YellowMonkey  ( vote in the Southern Stars and White Ferns supermodel photo poll )  06:50, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Okay, now see Reliable_sources/Noticeboard. - Dank (push to talk) 11:51, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Di Giulian quotes the most authoritative sources of which I'm aware, mainly John Campbell and several Russian books on naval weapons, so I hardly think that he's quoting some textbook. Most of your examples don't apply as Di Giulian is generally quoting published books, not any of that other stuff.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 12:54, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
 * When I say "textbook" I mean an academic-quality book, not something silly for kids. I was referring to the fact that lots of things that are not scholarly, like us, also cite books  YellowMonkey  ( vote in the Southern Stars and White Ferns supermodel photo poll )  00:43, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
 * WP:SPS: "Self-published material may in some circumstances be acceptable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications." He's described as a "gun control expert" in one book, and his work has been published in others. I don't see how this doesn't meet SPS, YM... — Ed   (talk  •  majestic titan)  21:33, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Support. - The Bushranger Return fire Flank speed 16:24, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Concerning the recent addition of a possibly unreliable source, please see User_talk:Omeganian. - Dank (push to talk) 13:15, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Now at RSN. - Dank (push to talk) 14:53, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Comments
 * " The Sovetsky Soyuz class battleships (Project 23, Russian: Советский Союз). " For me, this comes up as though it had the nowiki flag on the main page. Please fix.
 * I don't see "Cat handler" in the edit screen, and it displays correctly in both the old and new skin for me. - Dank (push to talk) 02:14, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
 * The automagically disappearing layout problem. If only they were all that easy. Doug (talk) 02:50, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
 * "Only four hulls of the sixteen originally planned had been laid down by July 1940, when the decision was made to cease construction to divert resources to land forces in preparation for the imminent war with Germany." Either the surprise attack by the Germans was imminent, and therefore unknown to the Soviets (or I'm a very bad student of WWII), or it was underway and therefore it was not imminent. This appears to be a factual inconsistency.
 * Not at all. The Soviets expected a war with Germany, but on their terms and timing. They were caught by surprise by the German attack.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 02:21, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
 * The Soviets had no idea war was "imminent" (a word with very specific implications) and we cannot be seen to retrospectively infer contemporary motivation based on contemporarily unknown facts. I'm sure that was not the intention, but it reads that way. Perhaps "planned invasion of Germany" with a wikilink for clarification. Doug (talk) 02:51, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I'll have to dig out the original wording from my source and clarify it; it is a bit ambiguous as currently written.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 03:06, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Rewritten.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 19:06, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Sorry Sturmvogel, no offense intended, but having gone through two first paragraph disasters already tonight, I'm not going past two errors in the first paragraph of the introduction. Please comprehensively review. Doug (talk) 01:55, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Corrected the typo to 1941. Anything else? - Dank (push to talk) 02:14, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the resposes, I'll move on. Doug (talk) 02:50, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Comment Where are we with the sourcing issues? - Dank (push to talk) 05:21, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Reply to Comment since I'm lazy enough not to add a colon infront of this If you meen the RSN stuff, I've replied. Buggie111 (talk) 18:08, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I did it for you, cause I'm just that kinda guy.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 19:06, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Support per usual disclaimer and per my comments at WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Sovetsky_Soyuz_class_battleship. I would appreciate it if someone would check my copyediting. On the question of navweaps, my position is that people have raised some legitimate questions and I'm happy to add alternative sources when I use navweaps both to cover the material and to educate reviewers on the esteem that navweaps holds among authors of books covering naval weapons. I think this is the general consensus at WP:SHIPS, and we're going to spend a few weeks gathering as many helpful cites as we can. If anyone is dissatisfied and wants to remove navweaps from this article at this time, that's fine with me, for now. - Dank (push to talk) 15:42, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Comments and support The text refers to "the Second London Naval Treaty that limited battleships to a displacement of 35,000 tonnes (34,447 long tons". The treaty language says "No capital ship shall exceed 35,000 tons (35,560 metric tons) standard displacement".  This should be corrected.
 * Done
 * Sturmvogel-- the conversion was overlooked here. I have inserted a manual conversion, which uses the exact treaty values (the conversion template yields an overly-exact number different to the treaty's rounded number).  Question:  are the tonnage measures actually stated in your sources as metric tons, or is that an assumption?  Given the prevalence of the imperial ton in displacement measures in treaty language, we need to make sure that a displacement ton is not assumed to be a metric ton.  Kablammo (talk) 19:00, 14 June 2010 (UTC)
 * McLaughlin gives metric tons in the specification for the ship, otherwise type of ton is not noted. I have presumed metric tons as the Soviets were fully metric by then.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 20:33, 14 June 2010 (UTC)
 * While your assumption is reasonable, I suggest not specifying the type unless specified in the source, given the use of long tons in displacement measures, perhaps influenced by the treaties, which use long tons. There is little difference between a long ton and a metric ton anyway. Kablammo (talk) 01:17, 15 June 2010 (UTC)
 * This is a damned if I do, damned if I don't situation because somebody will question unspecified tons.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 01:19, 15 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes I know. Another reason why I think we overconvert-- the difference between long tons and metric tons is less than is consumed in fuel each day by one of these ships.  But in any event you should not be criticized for not going beyond the source.  Perhaps some outside views would be helpful here. Kablammo (talk) 01:26, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Some additional suggestions:
 * "Ship" used four times in three sentences in 3d paragraph of lede.
 * Fixed


 * You may want to indicate Stalin's title.
 * Done

I have added two more sources since the reviews above; the authors of these books (Frank Braynard and Bernard Ireland) are published authors on nautical subjects.

While the multiple conversions of units of measure are neither needed nor required by the MOS, I believe the article meets FA standards and therefore support. Kablammo (talk) 18:47, 11 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree with the image concerns expressed below, and therefore my support is conditional on their resolution (and correction of the discrepancy noted above on the treaty). It appears that Sergei Myagkov is a ship modeler who participates in several other websites and has contributed images to others; perhaps he should be contacted.


 * Unfortunately his website is now defunct.
 * His image is similar in overall plan but different in detail to the one prepared by Tony Gibbons for the cited Ireland book. It is doubtful that either is based on actual prints.
 * Kablammo (talk) 18:43, 12 June 2010 (UTC)
 * It matches, as best I can tell, the photos in McLaughlin of the official model in the Central Naval Museum in St. Petersburg, aside from the catapult and aircraft handling cranes.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 15:04, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Image use
 * I'm far from a licensing expert but I believe that you need a specific free use rationale for using the photo in this article. The origin of the photo itself isn't the best either. At the source it says "Courtesy of Sergei Myagkov" and in the WP summary it's claimed and is a scan of the illustration in the book published in Soviet Union circa 1970 What book was this? etc. Brad (talk) 00:55, 12 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I've added a rationale. I have no idea what book was used, although that's not necessarily important given that the image is most likely still in copyright.
 * This is an uncomfortable situation. At the source there is an author name but it's not listed at WP. I also believe that for legitimate fair use the image should be low-res. From a WP standpoint we don't know the author; we don't know the original source. It's obvious the listed source is not the owner of the pic. I think we do indeed need to know what particular book this photo originated from. Brad (talk) 23:02, 15 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Define low-res, please. I do not read Russian; the likelihood of identifying the book approaches zero. And since I'll readily concede that it's most likely still in copyright, how does that matter? I don't understand.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 23:12, 15 June 2010 (UTC)
 * A low resolution photo. Meaning a photo only large enough to illustrate the ship with no larger photo available for viewing. The trouble with this license is that it's not filled out correctly for wikipedia. We have information of who the author was but it's not listed here. Same goes for claiming that it's from a book but then not listing the book. This needs cleaning up. Otherwise i don't know what else to say; I'm not a copyright or free use expert. Maybe asking at commons would find someone more knowledgeable. Brad (talk) 03:23, 19 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Screw it, you're wanting information that is unlikely to ever be available since I'm not the uploader. It's gone.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 08:38, 19 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Please ping me when this is resolved. Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 18:20, 12 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I hope you will work out the conversion issues-- we shouldn't go beyond the sources when making conversions. Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 18:43, 19 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I've unconverted the tons in the design section and added a note saying that they're unspecified in the source material.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 19:06, 19 June 2010 (UTC)


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