Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests/HMS Royal Oak (08)

HMS Royal Oak (08)

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of the TFAR nomination of the article below. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article/requests). Please do not modify this page unless you are renominating the article at TFAR. For renominations, please add   to the top of the discussion and   at the bottom, then complete a new TFAR nom underneath.

The result was: not scheduled by BencherliteTalk 12:45, 2 October 2014 (UTC)



HMS Royal Oak was a Revenge-class battleship of the Royal Navy. Launched in 1914 and completed in 1916, Royal Oak first saw action at the Battle of Jutland. In peacetime, she served in the Atlantic, Home and Mediterranean fleets, more than once coming under accidental attack. The ship drew worldwide attention in 1928 when her senior officers were court-martialled. Attempts to modernise Royal Oak throughout a 25-year career could not fix her fundamental lack of speed, and by the start of the Second World War, she was no longer suited to front-line duty. On 14 October 1939, Royal Oak was anchored at Scapa Flow in Orkney, Scotland, when she was torpedoed by the German submarine U-47. The ship rolled and sank rapidly, taking with her 833 from a complement of 1,234. The loss of the obsolete vessel little affected the numerical superiority of the British navy and its allies, but had a considerable effect on wartime morale. The raid made an immediate celebrity and war hero out of the U-boat commander, Günther Prien, who became the first submarine officer in the German Kriegsmarine to be awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross. The wreck of Royal Oak is a protected war grave, and lies almost upside down in shallow water with her upturned hull just beneath the surface. In an annual ceremony to mark the loss of the ship, Royal Navy divers place a White Ensign underwater at her stern.
 * Most recent similar article(s): SMS Kaiser Wilhelm II, 14 September
 * Main editors: BillC
 * Promoted: 2007
 * Reasons for nomination: 75th anniversary of sinking; 7 years since promoted; lost out on TFA nomination on 70th anniversary.
 * Support as nominator. &mdash; BillC talk 18:34, 3 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Oppose The article's an elderly FA that's only been partially updated to modern standards. I doubt that I'll have the time to fix the outstanding issues before it runs.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 05:24, 9 September 2014 (UTC)
 * So was the Royal Oak. Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:37, 9 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Comment - the 75th anniversary would be unfortunate to miss, but Sturm makes some excellent points. The ship's participation in the largest single naval engagement in history is given a measly four sentences, for instance. I can try to lend a hand get it ready, but can make no promises. Parsecboy (talk) 14:06, 9 September 2014 (UTC)
 * What I could do is schedule it, but on the basis that if with x days to go you weren't all happy that the article was/would be ready in time, I'd replace it with something else. That way, there's an incentive to improve it but no fall-out if it doesn't happen. Thoughts? BencherliteTalk 09:33, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Sounds fair to me - I'll try to get to working on it this weekend. Parsecboy (talk) 16:58, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I'll get to work as well. I think we can get there. &mdash; BillC talk 18:32, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Support, I generally have concerns with standards prior to 2007, but post 2007 stuff that gets past FAC is pretty good, and this article is high quality and I have faith in those above that stated they will improve it even further. :) Good luck, &mdash; Cirt (talk) 22:55, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Oppose for now. The article is fundamentally ok but currently would fail on prose. There are too many sentences like "Operated by tugboats to allow the passage of friendly shipping, it was considered possible—but highly unlikely—that a daring U-boat commander could attempt to race through undetected before the boom was closed." and will need a major copyedit. --John (talk) 21:08, 21 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Comment: There are also a number of formatting issues, namely in the sources (e.g. one reads "Vanguard's Casualties + Survivors, Great War Document Archive, retrieved 2008-01-01", while another is "Watson, Jeremy (24 September 2006), "Picture perfect: the fallen Oak", The Scotsman on Sunday") and the footnotes, which are too large in text and too numerous. Haven't taken a look at the prose. Tezero (talk) 07:29, 30 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Not scheduled - this isn't a criticism of anyone, because everyone is busy, but the article has various issues as noted above and with less than a fortnight to go until the intended date, the article has received only 1 edit since the nomination started. BencherliteTalk 12:45, 2 October 2014 (UTC)