Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates/HMS Neptune (1909)/archive1

TFA blurb review
We're doing blurbs for FACs promoted in the 4th quarter of 2017, but I'd like to put this one off until the RfC at WT:MOS is resolved. - Dank (push to talk) 19:32, 20 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Sure, but how often can we expect these repetitious efforts to change she to it? It gets exhausting.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 20:32, 20 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes it does. - Dank (push to talk) 20:47, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

HMS Neptune was a dreadnought battleship built for the Royal Navy in the first decade of the 20th century, and the first British battleship to be built with superfiring guns. Shortly after completion in 1911, the ship carried out trials of an experimental fire-control director and then became the flagship of the Home Fleet. Neptune became a private ship in early 1914 and was assigned to the 1st Battle Squadron. The ship was assigned to the Grand Fleet when it was formed shortly after the beginning of the First World War in August 1914. Aside from participating in the Battle of Jutland in May 1916 and the inconclusive Action of 19 August several months later, the battleship's service during the war generally consisted of routine patrols and training in the North Sea. Neptune was deemed obsolete after the war and was reduced to reserve before being sold for scrap in 1922 and subsequently broken up.

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Hi and anyone else interested: a draft blurb for this article is above. Thoughts, comments and edits are welcome. Gog the Mild (talk) 20:59, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Close proximity alert for "became". I really hate the contortions we have to use to avoid feminine pronouns as the second sentence really suffers because of it; I'd really rather suffer the slings and arrows of outraged progressives. If I take direct responsibility for responding to all such comments by quoting the guideline and the RFCs, can I use them anyway?--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 13:56, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Understood that we don't want to put something on the Main Page that's embarrassing to SHIPS editors ... but I don't grant the premise that the text has to be embarrassing if we don't use "she". I had actually rewritten that second sentence, then reverted myself erased what I wrote before saving ... I'll go find my work and re-revert. Tell me if it works for you. Gog, thoughts? - Dank (push to talk) 14:53, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Done. Btw, my sense has been that only people who care about these issues even notice the change. But ... if you and Parsecboy and Gog disagree, and especially if you see anyone making a comment that implies that the blurb text is a "win" for the anti-she vote, then I'd like to stop editing ship blurbs. I don't want to be involved in any pronoun fights, it's a losing game for a copyeditor (on Wikipedia, at least), no matter who wins. - Dank (push to talk) 15:03, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Folding the second sentence into the first one works. I do think that only the "sensitive" folks even notice the change; I just hate the fact that it's good enough for FAC, but gets censored for the main page.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 15:27, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
 * "Censored" isn't the word I'd use. - Dank (push to talk) 15:30, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
 * May I make a suggestion about the the proximity issue? - Can the wording be adjusted to "...and then was made the flagship of the Home Fleet. Neptune became a private ship in early 1914 and was assigned to the..." It only adds one space and one more letter. Llammakey (talk) 19:28, 21 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Fine by me.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 23:06, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

Sturmvogel, I started a sabbatical from TFA yesterday (see WT:TFA for what it covers). Regarding the discussion above, if this feels like an unresolved conflict to you, then my preference would be to back away from working on ships blurbs completely while I'm on sabbatical and let you and Gog and SHIPS editors figure out how you want to handle this issue and any other issues that come up; that would be consistent with the goals of my sabbatical. But I don't think it needs to be an unresolved conflict. It's always been true that SHIPS editors don't insert pronouns when article text is rewritten in a condensed form (such as infoboxes). Although we went for many years using "she" in blurbs (and I think that was the right decision), there are a range of other issues where we've always taken advantage of the shorter form of blurbs to avoid certain conflicts that are unavoidable in article text, and in general, I haven't gotten pushback for being careful in this way. But, after saying all that, if this still feels like an unresolved issue or a hot-button topic to you, I respect your instincts on SHIPS issues, and I'll back away. - Dank (push to talk) 14:39, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
 * It's not a hot-button issue for me, not really. It's an irritation that tends to get inflamed when I have to deal with it a bunch in a short amount of time because I don't believe that it should be needful. I think the whole issue is a waste of time and energy and wish people would spent those resources on more important things. I don't use the feminine pronouns to offend people, so I don't care if they do get offended; that's on them. So avoiding their use seems like pandering, but it's really not a lot of extra work when we have to compress the lede down to the blurb anyway. So enjoy your sabbatical, Gog and I can handle my blurbs.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 15:15, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Agreed that it's not that much work (your leads are very good to start with) and that the two of you can easily handle it. Will it be an annoyance if I keep deleting pronouns (both she and it; I'm an equal-opportunity panderer) from other people's ship blurbs? - Dank (push to talk) 15:35, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Not at all. Fundamentally I'm pretty solipsistic; if I'm not involved, I don't much care, other than the principle of the thing, but that's much more abstract and a lot less irritating. (often more colloquially phrased as "Not my monkeys, not my circus")--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 15:43, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Heh, you edit-conflicted out the good part: "And I have no objection at all if you two want to continue using feminine pronouns." - Dank (push to talk) 15:47, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Btw, while we're here, you might or might not be interested in User_talk:Gog_the_Mild/Blurbs. - Dank (push to talk) 15:50, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
 * And, Sturmvogel and Gog, I forgot to say: I expect that most ship blurbs that show up at TFA will continue to say "she" ... because just about all of them were originally written using "she", and passed some kind of consensus process in that form. It's only the recently promoted non-Sturm ship FACs that are going without pronouns. - Dank (push to talk) 16:46, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Hi both. I think that I was meant to be pinged earlier, but it misfired. The current proposed blurb looks fine to me - just over the minimum. I pretty much share Sturm's opinion on what others can do with their dislike of pronouns, but I'm the monkey, not the organ grinder.


 * As I said a while ago to Dank it's "like writing an article that doesn't contain the letter "e"." That said "recently promoted non-Sturm ship FACs" seems a small subset. Hey ho. I guess that we all have content creation that we would rather be getting on with. Or, to paraphrase shamelessly: Arguing with Wikipedians over grammar is a sucker's game because they almost always turn out to be—or to be indistinguishable from—self-righteous sixteen-year-olds possessing infinite amounts of free time. Gog the Mild (talk) 17:59, 28 February 2020 (UTC)