Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/USS Missouri (BB-63)

USS Missouri (BB-63)

I'm nominating this article because I believe it's come a long way in terms of quality and completeness of content. This really is one of the better histories of the ship I've seen and with the considerable wiki links provides a unique entry point for somebody wanting to learn about battleships and/or WWII history. ---B- 02:09, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

NOTE: For some reason, this page wasn't placed here on 17 June. I just placed it here now. Also note that User:Bschorr, who nominated the article, has worked on it, which makes this a self-nom (I think). TomStar81 02:02, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• Support --This page contains historical information, and reports on the history of what may be the most famous battleship of the entire 20th century. Of all the pages I have worked on, this is the one that I believe most desereves Featured Article status.TomStar81 02:02, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• Object I agree that the article looks very good, but where are the inline citations? --JohnDBuell | Talk 03:35, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

O.K., I'll see if I can do something about the inline cites. ---B- 04:26, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• comment all of that information from just one reference? slambo 13:18, Jun 20, 2005 (UTC)

That section does need to be expanded. ---B- 17:04, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Note that -B- is a volenteer crewmember with the USS Missouri, so he was accsess to all of the ships information. My references were are listed under "External Links", along with links added by wwoods. TomStar81 22:34, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Quite a bit of my information, especially weapons and engineering are from personal experience aboard the ship and from shipmates and former crewmembers. However I do have a couple of other outside references that I will try to add in the next day or so. ---B- 01:36, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• Comment: Congratuations on an article that has only free-content images! I've just finished objecting to just about every other article on FAC on the grounds that they're using unfree images. --Carnildo 1 July 2005 05:58 (UTC)

• Comment: Objecting just because they use non-free images is counter productive. There are simply subjects where you can't get free images, many photographers like me who spend lots of time and money taking photos, scanning photos, and editing photos don't like our photos being used without some restrictions. If Wikipedia allowed non-commercial to be uploaded still, I start uploading my many slides of aircraft including some unique photos. On top of that are photos that can only be captured by the press organizations because of time and access issues. Also don't say that it can't be abused because GNU and all those licenses, because people do abuse photos everyday. PPGMD 5 July 2005 21:06 (UTC)

• Support: Fine article. Re: lack of citations; Most of the article simply doesn't need them. This is mostly an historical outlay, much of which comes from DANFS which is mentioned as a source. I've added a couple of cites for quotations; these are appropriate. Adding additional cites for this type of article would be difficult and awkward. Also, I've just added Radar/FC/EW/Other to the specifications table; this is often overlooked on ships and is quite important for any WWII and forward ships that had this sort of equipment. --Durin 1 July 2005 15:55 (UTC)
  • Added armour information. TomStar81 7 July 2005 02:31 (UTC)
• Reluctant oppose until reference section is expanded. It's a great article, but FAs need references, IMHO, since they are the backbone of wikipedia's credibility. Should they be added, I would be eager to change my vote.--Scimitar 6 July 2005 16:16 (UTC)
  • Would you mind translating IMHO into english for the abreviatedly- challenged? 216.63.175.29 TomStar81 6 July 2005 22:23 (UTC)
  • I added two books that reference Missouri in her WWII and Persian Gulf War years. Its not much, but it is a start. TomStar81 7 July 2005 00:12 (UTC)
    • Tentative support. A little more should be added, but I really didn't want to oppose this article anyway. Oh, and IMHO= in my humble opinion (sorry, it sounds less pompous abreviated).--Scimitar 7 July 2005 13:20 (UTC)
• Support. Excellent article. I enjoyed reading every part of it. --Alabamaboy 8 July 2005 19:58 (UTC)
• Object. Not comprehensive. I would support if it was entitled 'History of USS Missouri (BB-63)', as this is what it is about. There is no section at all about the ship's construction, features and such (only what one can read from the infobox). Another one on tactics and use of 'fast battleships' would be useful as well - it is covered 'between the lines' of the history section. Also, remove external links from text, move to references and link via footnotes. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 8 July 2005 20:49 (UTC)
  • Most of this objection seems to be unfounded. All of America's battleships have been decomissioned and removed from service, only Iowa and Wisconsin are maintained with the fleet, then only in reserve. The notion that the article should be titled 'history of the USS Missouri' entails that all ships from every navy that have been decomissioned should be moved to an article titled ' history of (insert ship's name here)'. As for construction, you build a ship the same way you build a building: one piece at a time. "Fast battleships" are still battleships, so the standard tactics that apply to battleships would apply to Missouri as well. TomStar81 9 July 2005 00:22 (UTC)
    • I agree with Tom on this one. This is a specific ship belonging to a class with several other ships. Aspects of design and such should be covered under the article about the ship class. Describing tactics is just as irrelevant and should be described in battleship or the likes. /Peter ^Isotalo 9 July 2005 02:42 (UTC)
  • The article Iowa class battleship, linked from the first sentence in the second paragraph of the article, seems to cover the construction, features and such quite well (if in a slightly unencyclopedic tone). --Carnildo 9 July 2005 03:25 (UTC)
    • Good. Then all you have to do is to summarise most of that info into a section of this article. Or, as I suggested, rename it to 'History...'. Remember - FA is supposed to be comprehensive, and simply linking to relevant articles does not make an article comprehensive. Compare existing FAs: RMS Titanic - has design as well as history. Same with Pioneer Zephyr. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 9 July 2005 18:07 (UTC)
    • Its summurized in the first three paragraphs. Additionally, the instructions say to make the article comprehensive, tight and well-written, so the construction of the class is outsourced to the Iowa-class battleship page. On top of that, most people aren't going to be terribly concerned with where the ship was built and how long it took them took do it and all that sort of thing. Add to that the fact that most people who think about Missouri jump strated to her role in hosting the September 2nd surrender of Japan in WWII. Thats why most of the relevent information is in the table to the right. TomStar81 21:04, 9 July 2005 (UTC)
      • Pitorus, this is not an article on battleship tactics or construction, but of a specific battleship and its history. Anyone checking this article out would (and should) not be looking for general information on battleships. Not even Iowa-class ones. Make sure there is proper linkage to these article instead. This article should only need top mention what is unique about this particular ship. /Peter ^Isotalo 16:26, 10 July 2005 (UTC)