Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Almirante Latorre-class battleship/archive1

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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 01:38, 22 January 2011 [1].

Almirante Latorre-class battleship[edit]

Almirante Latorre-class battleship (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 01:01, 8 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Say hello to another article in my South American battleship series! This one tells the tortured tale of two Chilean ships ordered during the South American dreadnought arms race of 1907–1914. However, when World War I broke out in 1914, they were taken over by the British. One (Almirante Latorre, or HMS Canada) was completed in 1915 and served in the war, while the other (Almirante Cochrane, or HMS Eagle) was mostly converted to an aircraft carrier, almost converted back to a battleship, then completed as an aircraft carrier. The former was sold back to Chile in 1920 and served into the 50s, instigating a major rebellion in 1931 along the way, while the carrier was kept by the British and eventually sunk in the Second World War. The article has passed a Milhist A-class review. I hope you enjoy the article; any and all comments on it are welcome. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 01:01, 8 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Source comments – The sourcing consists entirely of books, journals, and newspaper articles. All but one of these is an offline source; for the heck of it I read the one New York Times article that had a link, and it verified the fact it cited fine. I took a quick look at the formatting as well, and everything appeared okay. Giants2008 (27 and counting) 03:10, 8 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • That's not strictly accurate – I had forgotten to add the links for the other NYT articles, but you can check them now. There is an online Portuguese-language source from the Chilean Navy, and if you have access to it, there are four JSTOR articles. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 03:27, 8 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • Please don't think that I was complaining about the sources mainly being paper (it's not a bad thing to be using good book sources!). I was just doing a spot-check of the sources, as is starting to be done here on a regular basis. Even if there's not much to check, it's still worthwhile for me as a reviewer to say as much so the effort it takes to do these checks can be spent elsewhere (or if a reviewer happens to have the books used, they can check it). Basically, the short version of my original comment is that I didn't see any problems. :-) Giants2008 (27 and counting) 02:07, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        • Hmm, my reply didn't come off the way I intended it. I'll have to be more careful – I consciously try to avoid anything negative when I reply to reviewers of my articles, as it tends to be counterproductive. All I meant with my first comment was "I added a couple links if you want to check them + you may have missed these other online sources." :-) Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 06:39, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

WP:FA Criteria 3 met Fasach Nua (talk) 12:17, 11 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Dab/EL check - no dabs or dead external links. --PresN 00:09, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comments I'm close to supporting this but have the following comments:
    • "The growing dispute disturbed the British, who had extensive commercial interests in the area, and through their minister to Chile, they mediated negotiations between the two countries." is a bit awkward and should be split into two sentences. It would probably be best to say 'the British Government' rather than 'the British'.
    • The 'additional revenue' Brazil earned in the early 1900s wouldn't have paid for battleships unless there was a public subscription. I think that you mean 'the additional tax revenue collected by the Brazilian Government' or words to that effect
    • "capable of fulfilling being fully flush-decked for aircraft landings" is unclear
    • "Almirante Latorre spent most of the Second World War on patrol for Chile" suggests that she was at sea for most of the time between September 1939 and August 1945 Nick-D (talk) 00:07, 18 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • Thanks for the review, Nick. Do these tweaks address your concerns? Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 17:36, 21 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        • Support. The wording about the Brazilians is pretty clunky - you could say something like "the Brazilian Government used the increased tax revenue it earned as a result of high coffee and rubber prices to...". Other than that it looks OK, and I'm happy to support this on the assumption that the wording will be improved. Nick-D (talk) 10:06, 22 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • SuppportComments: very interesting work.
Technical comments:
Infobox info. A number of the details don't correspond with what I can find in Breyer's Battleships and Battlecruisers of the World. Specifically Breyer gives design displacement 28,000 and 28,600 tons - this accords with the figure quoted in the text. The number of 6-in guns is also incorrect in the infobox (12; text, and Breyer, say 16). Finally Breyer gives the complement as 1167 or 1175 (depending on which ship).
The length figure in the infobox is the figure for waterline length (though this isn't made clear), while the text gives overall.
It should probably be mentioned that the secondary armament was in barbettes.
Style comments:
I think it needs to be clearer why the "Argentinian-Chilean boundary dispute" section is relevant to the ships. This material is fairly relevant, but the reader might be surprised to see the first sentence of the body of the article being about Patagonia in the 1840s. We don't start (say) HMS Dreadnought (1906) by talking about Trafalgar. Alternatively condense that history to a couple of sentences and start the story of these ships in 1904.
The prose is marginal for FA standards. I have gone through part rewriting a few clunky sentences. Will see if I can find tomorrow to do a little more.
There is a bit of US point of view in the 'Bidding and Construction' section as the US side of the story is quite heavily illustrated while the Chilean, British and German sides of the story aren't. Appreciate the sources are probably selective here but this still needs to be addressed a bit.
Look forward to supporting when these concerns are addressed The Land (talk) 20:19, 18 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you very much for the review!
That's odd. I didn't actually check the infobox when I copied it in. I'll fix it in my next online session. Complements always vary from book to book, no matter what ship is in question -- I'll just remove it.
In a previous version of the article, I started the Background section with "The genesis of the Almirante Latorre class ..." Would that help in making the section's relevance more clear?
I'm sure it would, but the more I look at the article the more I'm sure that a lengthy discussion of the history is out of place here. A shorter summary would probably be better. The Land (talk) 01:27, 23 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree. The history of naval arms races between the two countries had a major impact on the Chilean decision to order dreadnoughts, and I don't have the resources to write a full-fledged article I could link too. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 03:18, 24 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Livermore extensively covered the American interactions with the South American countries, but I don't have much on the other POVs (though I'm not sure the Germans ever made a serious offer). I'll see if I can alleviate this a bit with Scheina. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 17:36, 21 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It's 4am here, so the infobox is gonna have to wait for tomorrow after I get off work. I checked Schenia, and even he focuses on the futile American attempts to land the contract. I think he chose to focus on the US because that is where the story is – according to him, the contracts were already certainly going to the UK due to its extensive and long-lasting relationship with Chile. Scheina comments that "Favor such as Great Britain showed Chile found no parallel in the world's other important navies", while also remarking on the "strong ties" since 1839 (which were recently made stronger due to a 1911 British naval mission) and calling it a "special relationship." (Naval History, 138). I think I'll add something to that effect tomorrow, as I don't think I've been completely clear in communicating this idea in the article. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 10:01, 22 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Fair enough - but then the article needs to talk a bit more about the long-lasting relationship with Great Britain in this context, and perhaps be adorned with a few fewer quotes from Americans. Also any idea which British armoured cruisers were sent, or if there is anything to justify something about why the armoured cruisers were very unimpressive at the time? The Land (talk) 01:27, 23 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Do these edits satisfy our concerns? I don't think the article implies anything negative about the armored cruiser squadron, and the names of the ships in the squadron were not given, unfortunately. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 03:18, 24 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
They're an improvement. I've made a further tweak - can you check it doesn't misrepresent the source. Would still prefer less detail on the history, but that's no bar to it being an FA in my oppintion.
  • Further comments My support stands, but the wording of the article's lead really does need to be tightened:
    • What's the purpose of including the Spanish translation of 'battleships' in the first sentence? Unless there was a different concept of what battleships were in the Spanish-speaking countries, it seems unimportant.
    • "Despite a strong push from the American government for the bid" - I think that you mean "the contract/s" rather than "the bid"
    • Is there any particular reason to specify only that "The keels for both ships were laid" in the introduction? It seems that construction of both ships was well underway at the time they were purchased by Britain.
    • "She patrolled the North Sea for most of the war" no she didn't; like the rest of the Grand Fleet's battleships she spent most of the war in port. Nick-D (talk) 03:46, 30 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Sorry for the delay, I've been back-and-forth between WikiCup needs and real life (I'm currently in San Francisco). In order:
  • I've been including the translation just in case readers would find that interesting – it doesn't serve much of a purpose, but I don't think it detracts from the article.
  • I think it should be taken out then, particularly given that this is the English-language Wikipedia. It's likely to cause confusion among some readers without any off setting benefits. Nick-D (talk) 07:03, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • I disagree... I think a single translation of a normal word will interest readers. How could it be confusing? Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 23:40, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Because it appears in the location that readers expect to see foreign language translations of the name of the article's topic per WP:UEIA, so some readers might think that this class of battleships were called acorazados in Spanish-speaking countries. Nick-D (talk) 07:24, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Again, I disagree, as I think the translation is far enough away from the subject of the sentence (the bold words). I've used this in all of my other FAs too without complaint... Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 23:50, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Changed, nice catch
  • When writing the article, I thought I did... changed
  • That's poor summarizing by me. I've altered it to "She spent her wartime service with the Grand Fleet, seeing action in the Battle of Jutland." Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 05:04, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

1c/2c is good fine, a few clean ups JSTOR links are fine. Fifelfoo (talk) 03:40, 12 January 2011 (UTC) Fifelfoo (talk) 04:34, 12 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Brown, David. "HMS Eagle." Windsor probably needs a State or US State location, it is an uncommon publication place.
  • Given in refs but not used in cites, "Scheina, Robert L. "Argentina" and "Chile."" Scheina, Robert L. Latin America's Wars. due to misspelling as "Schenia"?
  • Given in refs but not used in cites, "Sater, William F. "The Abortive Kronstadt: The Chilean Naval Mutiny of 1931."" "Worth, Richard. Fleets of World War II." Move to "Further Reading?"
    • All done, though I added a ref to Sater and just removed Worth (he doesn't add much). Thanks! Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 04:07, 12 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments, leaning toward support. I'm very happy with this article—it's well-written and the narrative is fascinating. I'm amazed at the naval history of South America, because I never even knew they had much beyond ironclads and cruisers in that area of the world.
    • Random source check to the NYT article (ref 25) reveals no issues with close paraphrasing, etc.
    • "Chile was forced to respond, though this was delayed..." This what? Clarify please—this particular construction can confuse ESL readers.
    • "The revolt was the result of the country's economic woes in the midst of the Great Depression and a recent pay cut." The result, or a result?
    • "Most of the navy's ships joined Almirante Latorre, but they surrendered five days after it began when an air strike was mounted by government forces." Something is disjointed here, because you have "after it began" where "it" seems to refer to the Almirante Latorre. Suggest: "Most of the navy's ships joined Almirante Latorre in the mutiny, but they surrendered five days after it began when an air strike was mounted by government forces."
    • "Still in the midst of the depression, Almirante Latorre was deactivated..." Misplaced modifying phrase. As written, it sounds like only the ship was in the midst of the depression.
    • I'm curious: When a ship like this is sold for scrap, especially to post-WWII Japan, do they take all the armament off of it first? You mention she was deactivated and mothballed—does that entail disarming it?
    • "Soon after, Eagle was moved to the Mediterranean, where she protected convoys until May 1941, when she was sent to Gibraltar." Would you object to inserting "again" before "moved"? The narrative gets a bit muddy without it, since she had been to the Mediterranean before.
    • The last ship article I read didn't have "funnel" linked either, and I see it redirects to the generic article about "chimney", which is entirely about building chimneys. Bad redirect if you ask me. It used to be a useful stub. It's interesting—is there nothing ship-specific that can be written about the topic? I don't think the average layperson (which I consider myself to me) immediately knows "funnel".
--Andy Walsh (talk) 05:02, 12 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you very much for the detailed review! As you can tell, I'm amazed by the history here too. :-) I believe I have addressed all of your concerns. I'm not sure if dearming was the norm, but I have seen pictures (with unclear copyright status, unfortunately) that showed Latorre being towed to Japan with armament intact. I'd assume this is because there would be no ammunition on board to fire from the guns? I think disarming is the norm today, however. Regarding the funnel article, it never occurred to me to look for an old article, I just used the redirect. I think that stub should be restored. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 17:49, 12 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I've restored the stub.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 17:52, 15 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comments: I made all the following edits (if there were edits to make); feel free to revert. - Dank (push to talk) 14:42, 14 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • "Chilean warships seized merchant ships operating in the disputed area which had been given license to do so by Argentina.": Chilean warships seized merchant ships which had been licensed to operate in the disputed area by Argentina. - Dank (push to talk)
  • "Chile added £3,129,500 to its fleet budget in 1887; a fleet which was centered around": Chile added £3,129,500 in 1887 to the budget for its fleet, which was centered around. - Dank (push to talk)
  • "Soaring demand for coffee and rubber brought the Brazilian economy an influx of revenue, which was then taxed. This allowed for the Brazilian government to begin a large naval building plan.": Soaring demand for coffee and rubber brought an influx of tax revenue, used to begin a large naval building plan. - Dank (push to talk)
  • "Attempts from outside countries and Argentina—by offering to purchase one of the two dreadnoughts—to avert a full-scale naval arms race were made.": Argentina and other countries attempted to avert a full-scale naval arms race by offering to purchase one of the two dreadnoughts. - Dank (push to talk)
    • This one was not good. The construction of the original was awkward, but it was Argentina that offered to purchase one of the two, not any other country. Is there a way to make the sentence less awkward while keeping this meaning? Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 00:31, 16 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Brazil's refusal of Argentina's offer, combined with further tensions over the River Plate (Río de la Plata, literally "Silver River") area and inflammatory newspaper editorials favoring dreadnoughts, caused Argentina to go ahead with a massive naval building plan.": My position is that we can be more NPOV here. Countries are constantly blaming other countries for forcing them to do things. I believe we should only repeat the claim if we back it up in-text with sources. I went with: "Brazil refused Argentina's offer. After further tensions over the River Plate (Río de la Plata, literally "Silver River") area and inflammatory newspaper editorials favoring dreadnoughts, Argentina went ahead with a massive naval building plan." - Dank (push to talk) 14:42, 14 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Chile was forced to respond": Chile wanted to respond. Same issue. - Dank (push to talk)
  • "109 6-inch": no edit, just a comment. MILHIST editors tend to spell out "ninety-nine 6-inch", in line with WP:ORDINAL, but tend to stick to numerals when the first number is 100 or more: "109 6-inch". If anyone has a problem with that, please let me know. - Dank (push to talk)
  • "Yokohama, Japan": Yokohama, Japan,. See WP:MHCL#commas. - Dank (push to talk)
    • Only one problem with your edits Dank. Thanks so much, as always. Your copyediting is greatly appreciated...I want you to know that. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 00:31, 16 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      • Muchas, amigo. Ah I didn't understand what you meant, glad you caught it ... which is an additional reason to copyedit, and to leave my before-and-after comments. - Dank (push to talk) 21:06, 16 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Support per standard disclaimer. - Dank (push to talk) 15:17, 14 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Support Oppose

  • No use of Burt or Parkes' books on British battleships, fundamental references for these ships.
  • Great coverage of political background, but no description of the design history.
  • Only a cursory description of the ships. Forex what range do the 6-inch guns have? How many shells carried for each gun and how many torpedoes?
  • How does Campbell's book on naval weapons provide support the ships' armor thicknesses?
  • Not fond of description after histories of the ships, but that's not part of this oppose.
  • I've cleaned up the infobox, but a complement figure needs to be added.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 18:58, 15 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Burt is used, Parkes is not because I don't have it... I think you do though, am I missing anything significant? (if so, I'm sorry for not checking before)
    • As far as I can see, there is no design history of the ships in English. Rivadavia-class battleship only has a design history because they made the abrupt changes in the requirements. Without them, they wouldn't either. Minas Geraes-class battleship, on the other hand, uses David Topliss' research into Vickers' files. However, even that focuses on Agincourt more that Minas Geraes and Sao Paulo. I don't think this is actionable barring extensive examination of Spanish sources, which may or may not have anything, or research directly at the archives of Armstrong and Vickers.
    • Removed, nice catch.
    • I don't have a complement in Rivadavia-class battleship either due to the great variability of any ship's crew members. Thanks for the review, Sturm! Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 00:24, 16 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      • I've emailed you scans of all the pages you'll need to flesh things out. I don't care that the crew figures vary, put something up with a cite and, hopefully, a year, so maybe we can get a sense of how differently the ship was manned under the RN and by the Chileans, forex.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 01:21, 16 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
        • Thanks Sturm, I've added most of the information except the extremely detailed specifications. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 00:39, 17 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Kleopatra's comments

Moved for editing on adaptive device. --Kleopatra (talk) 20:35, 16 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose I'm going to start with an oppose. This article is missing fundamental general audience encyclopedia information. I looked through the article for an explanation of the name, but cannot find anywhere that the ship class is named after Chilean Vice Admiral Juan José Latorre. In other words, that's what an Almirante Latorre class ship is: it's an Admiral Latorre ship class named after a then living (?) Chilean admiral who kicked some Peruvian butt. And the other ship in the class, could it possibly have been named after Thomas Cochrane, 10th Earl of Dundonald and you're not going to link to that article? OMG! Way to take the fun out. Please broaden the appeal of the article by giving at least mention to the characters who lent their names to both the class and the two ships in the class. There is a connection. --Kleopatra (talk) 17:44, 15 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
See footnote 2 for links to the men the ships were named after.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 17:55, 15 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I don't want a footnoted link. I want to read this in the article. This is a general encyclopedia, and who the ship is named after, and who the ship-class is named after are major general information, not a footnote. --Kleopatra (talk) 18:03, 15 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
We are criticized much more often for duplicating information in the class article that people would reasonably expect to find in the ship articles; we don't have the option of providing duplicate information in class articles every time someone asks for it. In general, if you want to know information about a thing in Wikipedia, look in the article about that thing. - Dank (push to talk) 18:21, 15 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This is the name of the class. This is also English wikipedia, not Spanish wikipedia. If I wnat to read about the Almirante Latorre class in Spanish, I know where to find that information, but not a single mention of the name, that is the title of the article, and what it means? Show me where that rule is, to exclude the translation and background of the title from FAs or from all articles, and I will work to get that policy changed. The article is incomplete without the information that this class is named after the admiral. --Kleopatra (talk) 18:41, 15 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The class is named after the ship, not after the admiral. The ship is named after the admiral. - Dank (push to talk) 18:47, 15 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It's still the title of the article, and I'll concede the point about the other ship; but for the article, I want to know why the article's title is in Spanish, what it means, and who the class is named after. I hate reading FAs that make me click on 5 links to find out what the title means. And, go to a Spanish/English dictionary for a number of readers. Okay, it's an article about a class of ships, named for something Spanish. I'm gone at that point, unless I'm specifically interested in ships. Ship articles are fun, a lot of general readers could read them with a little courtesy on the part of the editors. --Kleopatra (talk) 18:51, 15 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Ed17, I browsed the FAs at WP:SHIPS, and roughly 25% of the class articles that include a foreign word in the title make a quick mention (such as "named after important cities") of the meaning in the first paragraph. So we should have enough support to get this through FAC either with or without, in case you want to add something like "both named after famous admirals" and link both ships. - Dank (push to talk) 20:47, 15 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, that's exactly what I was going to do when I read the oppose before your comment. It would corespond to what I did in Rivadavia-class battleship. Thanks Dank. I'm not sure what translation you want, Kleo. I have a translation of "battleships" (acorazados) in the article already. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 00:24, 16 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Almirante? Seems like the obvious one to translate.... --Kleopatra (talk) 00:51, 16 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I give up requesting that international wikipedia translate things into English. It seems there is a drive to prove we're multilingual here at en.wikipedia, which is turning into proof we don't care that our audience speaks English.[2] I care. I speak other languages, and I would never be so discourteous on wikipedia to demand that English language readers of articles I edit speak all those other languages. It's rude and it should not be any part of a FA.--Kleopatra (talk) 20:22, 16 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Replying to your comment on the talk page of this FAC. - Dank (push to talk) 20:49, 16 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment The article is generally well organized and well written, although the prose is stilted in a few places. I will add some specifics. I would like sentences to begin more clearly, rather than as asides to their own prose. This is minor. A few areas need linked to specifics. When initially discussing internal Argentine conflicts, do you mean Araucanization and Conquest of the Desert? Were these ships a response to Chile claiming the Straits of Magellan? The timing, early 20th century, is about the time these two combatants started upping the ante with other armaments in response to these late 19th c. treaties and grabs? --Kleopatra (talk) 18:51, 15 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"asides to their own prose"? I don't understand what you mean. Any concrete examples I can examine? I added a link to Conquest of the Desert. Scheina wasn't very specific (his being a naval history, not a general history), and I didn't know that "conqueored the desert" would be close to the name of our Wikipedia article. Thanks very much for pointing me at it.[3] From sources, it looks like the ships were the direct result of Argentina acquiring the two Rivadavia-class battleships – was this not made clear enough in the article? Thank you very much for the review, and I'm looking forward to your response! Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 00:24, 16 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Missing reference. What does "Garrent, "Beagle Channel," 85–87" refer to? Could I have the full reference put in the article? Thanks. --Kleopatra (talk) 20:35, 16 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • It was a combination typo/forgetfulness. I've corrected the name ("Garrett") and added the reference (link). Nice catch! Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 22:45, 16 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Support Comment I like the article and I certainly enjoyed the historical background. If the entire article was simply composed of the ship's specifications it would be quite boring. I'd like, however, to make a few comments about some pieces of the text that I believe could be improved.

1) Is there a need to all those Spanish-translated names? Ex.: acorazados, Guerra del Pacífico, crucero acorazado, etc...
This FAC may be closed soon so I'll jump in ... no opinion on this one. - Dank (push to talk)
2) "Chile often instigated or was drawn into naval competition with Argentina". Could it be a little more expanded to add "Chile often instigated or was drawn into naval competition with Argentina due to boundary dispute."?
I don't think that was the only source of disputes. - Dank (push to talk)
3) Could there be somekind of information telling that all three countries are located in South America? Perhaps in "When Argentina responded to Brazil's order for two dreadnoughts with two of its own, Chile felt that it also needed to respond". It could be added "When Argentina responded to neighbor Brazil's order for two dreadnoughts with two of its own, Chilefelt that it also needed to respond, leading to an arms race between the three nations of South America".
Most readers who care enough to read the article will know it, so I'd rather not put it in the lead section, but I did add "in southernmost South America" to the first sentence after the lead to deal with this point and your next point. I'm leaning opposed to changing, say, "to Brazil's order" in the lead to "to neighboring Brazil's order"; it just isn't something I often see in professional writing, although I understand that some people won't know it. I'm not sure how much more enlightened they'll be by "neighboring" if they didn't know it already. I could see linking to or adding a map. - Dank (push to talk)
4) "Conflicting Argentine and Chilean claims to Patagonia went back to the 1840s. In 1872 and again in 1878, Chilean warships seized merchant ships which had been licensed to operate in the disputed area by Argentina." What is Patagonia? Although I know what it is, most don't. Could you add something like ""Conflicting Argentine and Chilean claims to Patagonia—a geographic region containing the southernmost portion of South America—went back to the 1840s."
See above. - Dank (push to talk) 20:16, 18 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
5) "for a design drawn up by J.R. Perret, who had also designed Brazil's Rio de Janeiro". Why there is no wikilink to Rio de Janeiro? Perhaps it could more information could be added such as: "for a design drawn up by J.R. Perret, who had also designed Brazil's Rio de Janeiro—a dreadnought ordered in 1911 but sold to Turkey before completion and renamed Sultan Osman I". Since Rio de Janeiro was also part of this arms race, the extra bit of info perhaps would be welcome.
6) "Almirante Latorre was not forcibly seized like the Ottoman Reshadieh and Sultan Osman I" could become "not forcibly seized like the Ottoman Reshadieh and Sultan Osman I (former Rio de Janeiro)".

Please, do not feel obliged to make the changes I suggested solely for the sake of pleasing me. If you believe it's not a good idea, say it. Kind regards, --Lecen (talk) 19:41, 18 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I addressed all but #2, Lecen (Dank is correct). They're all very valid thoughts, and I thank you for taking the time to read through the article. Dank, I'm not sure how professional it is, but I don't think a little extra context to ensure comprehension is a bad idea. :-) Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 06:14, 19 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, I was just talking about the words "neighbor" or "neighboring", they don't sound right in a history article somehow ... I'll ruminate on this. - Dank (push to talk) 12:47, 19 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I really, really like this article. I's quite a shame that ed17 focus solely on the battleship articles. My suggestions had taken in acount that readers do not know everything. It's quite common among people who do not know South America that well to mistake Paraguay for Uruguay, etc... Congratulations you two. Regards, --Lecen (talk) 12:24, 19 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments - I reviewed this article at ACR and found no major issues.
    • Why does the quote box have parenthetical referencing and not a footnote?
      • Dank made that change here Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 18:11, 19 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
        • Chicago 15.25 recommends attribution of blocked quotes in the text (although Chicago prefers the year over the title, which I didn't do). I'm agnostic on what, if anything, should appear in the endsections. - Dank (push to talk) 18:14, 19 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
          • Dank, you're looking at the author-date section when I'm using notes-bibliography. :-) I think a numbered reference is fine per 14.21. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 18:29, 19 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
            • Sorry, see 13.68 for the main point: they recommend that the author's name be mentioned in the main text for any significant quote. It's also a MOS requirement, at WP:MOS#Attribution. You mention 14.21 ... note that the author's name is mentioned in the main text in their example. - Dank (push to talk) 19:05, 19 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
              • Ah, thanks, missed that bit. Definitely did not know about MOS#Attribution, thanks for the link! Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 19:10, 19 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
                • Not a problem, it's my job. All that's missing is the paycheck. - Dank (push to talk) 19:16, 19 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • This line is a bit unclear: "Before construction began, the Almirante Latorre design was made slightly bigger to mount sixteen 6-inch (152 mm) rather than twenty-two 4.7-inch (119 mm) guns" - maybe add something like "as Perret had originally been intended" at the end. And bigger how? Longer? Wider beam? And this is just a suggestion, but I think "enlarged" sounds better than "made bigger."
    • The gallery at the bottom comparing the three completed South American dreadnought types is innovative. The only question is, given that the captions on Minas Geraes and Rivadavia have facts in them, do they need to be cited?
  • Excellent work as usual, Ed. Parsecboy (talk) 12:51, 19 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]


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