Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Alan Shepard


 * The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Article promoted by Zawed (talk) via MilHistBot (talk) 08:06, 15 February 2017 (UTC) &laquo; Return to A-Class review list

Alan Shepard

 * Nominator(s): 

Despite what you may have heard recently, Alan Shepard was the first American in space. And he's be the first to tell you so if he were here. Hawkeye7 (talk) 09:44, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

Support: G'day, not a lot stood out to me. Just a few minor observations: AustralianRupert (talk) 07:12, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
 * is "bail out" correct or should it be "eject"?
 * ✅ My source says "bailed out" but he would have ejected. Changed to say that. Someone once attempted to compile a list of people who ejected. The aircraft killed plenty of pilots between 1949 and 1959, earning it the nickname "ensign eliminator". Hawkeye7 (talk) 08:39, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
 * "but emphasised that it was..." --> "emphasized"?
 * ✅ My auto spell correction works against me here. Hawkeye7 (talk) 08:39, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
 * " but to select six astronauts instead of the twelve originally planned..." and then "The identities of the seven..." --> Why were seven selected, when it was planned to select only six?
 * ✅ Added The director of the NASA Space Task Group, Robert R. Gilruth, found himself unable to select six from the remaining eighteen, so ultimately seven were chosen. FWIW, three of the other 25 finalists eventually became astronauts: Charles Conrad, Edward Givens and James Lovell. Hawkeye7 (talk) 08:39, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
 * "of an SM-65D Atlas similar to the one that was to carry them into orbit". --> "of an SM-65D Atlas, which was similar to the one that was to carry them into orbit"?
 * ✅ Hawkeye7 (talk) 08:39, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
 * not sure about the capitalisation here: "the Command Pilot of the..." and "chosen as his Pilot". Are these proper or common nouns?
 * ✅ An artefact of the sources. De-capitalised. Hawkeye7 (talk) 08:39, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
 * capitalisation: "He was promoted to Rear Admiral by Nixon..." --> "He was promoted to rear admiral by Nixon" per WP:MILTERMS
 * ✅ Hawkeye7 (talk) 08:39, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

Nicely put together and very readable. A few very minor quibbles to consider:
 * Comments from The Bounder
 * The sentence "He was fascinated by flight, and created a model airplane club at the Academy, and his Christmas present in 1938 was a flight in a Douglas DC-3" is a little clunky with the three clauses. Perhaps "He was fascinated by flight, and created a model airplane club at the Academy; his Christmas present in 1938 was a flight in a Douglas DC-3" would ease this?
 * ✅ Split sentence. Hawkeye7 (talk) 11:17, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I saw Manchester Airport and I (as a Brit) thought Manchester Airport, not Manchester–Boston Regional Airport. As we're international, it may be best to use the full name to spare images of a transatlantic bicycle ride...
 * ✅ But it was not the full name then. Changed to "Manchester Airfield". Hawkeye7 (talk) 11:17, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
 * prep school. Worth piping a link to University-preparatory school?
 * ✅ Hawkeye7 (talk) 11:17, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
 * "row with the eight": is this OK in US English? It jars with my British English (we would say he "rowed with the eight"), but if it's OK in the US, that's fine.
 * ✅ Typo. Corrected. Hawkeye7 (talk) 11:17, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Definitely worth linking to Radar picket
 * ✅ Hawkeye7 (talk) 11:17, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
 * "He was a member of many organizations." doesn't tell us anything and worth scratching, particularly given the list of them in the following sentence.
 * "Many things are named in his honor." Same as above: it's not needed if there is a long list to follow
 * ✅ It was sort of a bridege. Removed. See if it reads okay without it. Hawkeye7 (talk) 11:17, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Probably worth moving "Blue Origin's subortial space tourism rocket, the New Shepard, is named after Shepard.[119]" up to the rest of the 'things named after him' paragraphs to avoid a stubby line floating out of context.
 * ✅ Hawkeye7 (talk) 11:17, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

All minor pickings in an excellent article; I hope these are of help. All the best, The Bounder (talk) 09:27, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the review! Hawkeye7 (talk) 11:17, 16 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Support. Changes all good, and I'm happy to support. All the best, The Bounder (talk) 11:37, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

Comments. Interesting read; just a few nitpicks: — HJ Mitchell &#124;  Penny for your thoughts?  18:02, 12 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Opening: difficult to read/parse - chronological order
 * ✅ I have rewritten it in chronological order. Hawkeye7 (talk) 00:17, 13 February 2017 (UTC)
 * I didn't mind having his main 'claim to fame' in the first paragraph, just that the opening sentences were a list of accomplishments and seemed to bounce around. HJ Mitchell  &#124;  Penny for your thoughts?  22:09, 13 February 2017 (UTC)
 * 463rd in his class of 915 This doesn't seem particularly remarkable; is there are a reason it's mentioned?
 * Yes. Class rank pretty much defines your whole naval career. Being halfway down the list makes becoming an admiral unlikely.
 * More of an observation than a criticism, but it seems strange that he would be an average student with such a high IQ
 * Shepard called it "complacency". He was intensely competitive and driven, but was more task oriented. A great deal of effort went into sailing and rowing. Hawkeye7 (talk) 00:17, 13 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Following the death of Louise's sister in 1956, they raised her niece, Judith, whom they renamed Alice to avoid confusion with Julie, as their own, although they never adopted her There's a lot of subclauses there; perhaps replace one set of commas with dashes?
 * ✅ This is really one of the most bizarre sentences in the article. It also corrects errors in various accounts, including earlier version of the article. Hawkeye7 (talk) 00:17, 13 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Also, how old was Judith/Alice at the time? Presumably she would have had to have been very young to be renamed like that?
 * ✅ She was five. Added, although the long sentence is now even longer. Hawkeye7 (talk) 00:17, 13 February 2017 (UTC)
 * The squadron was nominally based on the aircraft carrier USS Franklin D. Roosevelt, but it was being overhauled at the time Shepard arrived The ship was or the squadron was?
 * ✅ The ship. Added. Hawkeye7 (talk) 00:17, 13 February 2017 (UTC)
 *  He departed on his first cruise, of the Caribbean, with it Again, the ship or the squadron?
 * ✅ Both. Added. Hawkeye7 (talk) 00:17, 13 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Do we have dates of his promotions?
 * No. Hawkeye7 (talk) 00:17, 13 February 2017 (UTC)
 * At one point he was forced to eject from a Vought F7U Cutlass. Are there any more detials on this?
 * ✅ Yes indeed. I have expanded on it. Hawkeye7 (talk) 00:17, 13 February 2017 (UTC)
 * his unfavorable report killed the project Is that speculation or certainty? Do we know what he didn't like about it?
 * ✅ No, although it would be in the report, which we could dig up. The Wikipedia article says that the Navy didn't want too many Douglas aircraft. Changed to be less definite. Hawkeye7 (talk) 00:17, 13 February 2017 (UTC)
 * When reporters rang Shorty Powers for a comment at 4am, he memorably replied: "We're all asleep down here" This is amusing, but isn't a little off-topic for a biography of Shepard?
 * ✅ Deleted. Hawkeye7 (talk) 00:17, 13 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Neither Cooper nor McDivitt ever flew in space again. Is this relevant to Shepard's biography?
 * ✅ Deleted. Hawkeye7 (talk) 00:17, 13 February 2017 (UTC)
 * He was promoted to rear admiral by Nixon one-star or two-star? If one-star, that explains the relevance of McDivitt's rank; otherwise, is it relevant?
 * It's complicated. The US Navy eliminated the one-star rank of commodore after World War II. Thereafter (until 1981), there were two grades of rear admiral, "lower half" and "upper half". The former were paid the same as one-star brigadier generals in the Army or Air Force, but both wore two-star insignia. Thus, Shepard (two stars) outranked McDivitt (one star). Hawkeye7 (talk) 00:17, 13 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Support. Happy with the changes. Promotion dates would have made the career progression clearer, but there's nothing we can do about that if the information isn't available. I don't know where you find the time to write about astronauts and paralympians in between your work on the Manhattan Project! HJ Mitchell  &#124;  Penny for your thoughts?  22:09, 13 February 2017 (UTC)


 * Support
 * All tool checks ok [no dabs, external links work, no repeat links] (no action req'd)
 * Earwig tool reviews no issues with close paraphrase or copy vio, only use of the public domain sources (no action req'd)
 * Image review: all images either seem to be PD or free and have the necessary information and tags (no action req'd).
 * I made a few very minor tweaks, otherwise this looks like it meets the A class criteria. Anotherclown (talk) 00:16, 15 February 2017 (UTC)


 * The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.