Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests/Kenneth Walker

Kenneth Walker
This nomination predates the introduction in April 2014 of article-specific subpages for nominations and has been created from the edit history of Today's featured article/requests.


 * 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: scheduled for Today's featured article/January 5, 2013 by BencherliteTalk 12:12, 18 December 2012 (UTC)



Kenneth Walker (1898–1943) was a United States Army aviator and a United States Army Air Forces general who had a significant influence on the development of airpower doctrine. Walker graduated from the Air Corps Tactical School in 1929, then served as an instructor there. He supported the creation of a separate air organization, not subordinate to other military branches and was a forceful advocate of the efficacy of strategic bombardment, publishing articles on the subject, and becoming part of a clique known as the "Bomber Mafia" which argued for the primacy of bombardment over other forms of military aviation. He advanced the notion that fighters could not prevent a bombing attack, and participated in the Air Corps Tactical School's development of the doctrine of industrial web theory, which called for precision attacks against carefully selected critical industrial targets. In 1942, during World War II, Walker was promoted to brigadier general and transferred to the Southwest Pacific. He frequently flew combat missions over New Guinea, for which he received the Silver Star. On 5 January 1943, he was shot down and killed while leading a daylight bombing raid over Rabaul, for which he was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor. (Full article...) 3 points: Two points for date relevance, being the 70th anniversary of the battle in which he won his medal of honour, and one point for being promoted in July 2011. Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:06, 29 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Support. A fine article, suitable for Main Page representation on the suggested date unless there is an American military biography featured previously with too little separation in time. Binksternet (talk) 21:21, 29 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Support, agree with analysis by, above, as well as date relevance. &mdash; Cirt (talk) 01:37, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Support, convincing --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:07, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Comment, there's a US aviator who also won the Medal of Honor scheduled for December 4. Don't know how that influences "points" but looks like a run on "US aviators who won the Medal of Honor". MathewTownsend (talk) 21:31, 2 December 2012 (UTC)
 * See the TFAR page instructions at the top of this page-- the date requested is more than a month from the last one. Still, considering the similarity and how few of same we (might?) have, I agree it's unfortunate that they can't be spaced out more; there must be other significant dates.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 21:36, 2 December 2012 (UTC)
 * The next significant date is the 75th anniversary of the battle in January 2018. Hawkeye7 (talk) 14:23, 16 December 2012 (UTC)
 * We have non-specific date slots that have not been used at least in the last six weeks; why are we focusing (generally here) so exclusively on scheduling around dates when we have other options? Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 15:14, 16 December 2012 (UTC)
 * The other significant date would be his birthday in July, but the 120th anniversary is in July 2018. My understanding is that the non specific date category is for articles on subjects without links to a specific date. I cannot see a circumstance where I would nominate a biographical article for a non-specific slot. And while the two non-specific slots are empty now, five were full a few weeks ago. Hawkeye7 (talk) 16:46, 16 December 2012 (UTC)
 * If that is your understanding of the non-specific date slots, then we need to do something to clear that up in the instructions. The intent is so that articles can be nominated generally, regardless of date connections, so that we aren't exclusively scheduling the TFA around date connections, which is (supposed to be) only one small part of scheduling.  We aim for diversity, among other things.  I've been following this page now for a month and have not seen the non-specific dates full; if you would find and post a link of the last time it was full, that would be helpful.  Perhaps I missed it.  Anyway, it is not at this point essential that an article be tied to a date, since the non-specific slots are empty and the delegates will probably run anything put up there, so my point is that it is unfortunate that we are running two articles that are fairly rare yet fairly similar so close together (even though they are the month apart that instructions allow for).  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 17:23, 16 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, the rule has long been that a month is sufficient. And if I nominated the article for a non-specific slot that would no longer be the case. It would have to run over the next week, and would attract a 2 point penalty instead of a two point bonus. (ie -1 instead of 3 points). So I am doing my bit to space them out. NB: You can see the five slots full here. Hawkeye7 (talk) 08:04, 18 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Support. Per Cirt and Binksternet. GabeMc  (talk contribs) 04:42, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Comment Reference 66 is a dead link and has been flagged as such since March 2012. BencherliteTalk 23:50, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Fixed the dead link. Binksternet (talk) 19:57, 13 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Two of the other links were timing out, so I found replacements for them. BencherliteTalk 21:13, 13 December 2012 (UTC)