Wikipedia:Featured article removal candidates/Iowa-class battleship

Iowa class battleship

Article is still a featured article

This article is badly written. It's full of unexplained military and nautical jargon "wet forward", "narrowness forward", "scuttles", "mothballed battleship"; grammatical errors "because a reserve … are in storage"; and other problems: why is "fast" quoted? why does participating in the US Navy make a battleship unique? And why begin the article with a sentence explaining how many were built? Better a simple descriptive "the Iowa class battleships are …" -lethe ^talk 17:55, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

• Keep. For things that minor, fix them yourself instead of listing them here. For that matter, you never even bothered to leave a mention on the talk page pointing out errors you see. I'm sure the articles authors could explain the jargon pretty easily and quickly. This appears to meet all other important criteria and easily fixable. That's not a good FARC candidate. - Taxman ^Talk 18:20, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
• I agree 100% with Taxman. Raul654 19:08, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

• Keep as per Taxman. Kuzaar 19:10, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
• Keep "wet forward" explained now, "narrowness forward" I think obvious and understandable TestPilot 04:36, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

"scuttles" & "mothballed battleship" links now to articles that explane them, "because a reserve" corrected way long ago(and that was a very minor edit), article never stated that Iowa is uniq becose it belong to US navy, article begins with "Iowa class is" as sugested... As per Tsavage, it sounds more like common phrases for me. IMHO. TestPilot 15:38, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

• Keep I agree with Taxman as well. The issues cited are relatively minor and easily fixed. ---B- 20:19, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
• Keep 100% agree with taxman. TomStar81 22:17, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
  • For the record and for your information: A)"wet foward": the Iowa clas s ships had a tendence to accumualte seawater forward of the no. 1 turret, which made that part of the ship wet. B)"scuttles": this refers to the demolish of a ship either by high explosives set inside the ship or its use as a target in a live fire exercise. C)"mothballed battleship": mothball is a reference to ships in a reserve fleet, in this case the United States Navy reserve fleets. D) "because a reserve ... are in storage" I don’t know how much clearer that statement could be. E)"fast": During World War II battleships usually did not steam as fast as their carrier cousins, the top speed for a battleship was about 25-28 knots; carriers could do about 32. "Fast" battleships were therefore concieved to keep up with aircraft carriers. The term has since stuck. TomStar81 22:32, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

• Remove as per TSavage below. Let's live up to the FA standards, or WP will devolve into a second-rate resource, a wasted chance to democratise knowledge on the Internet, but I'll change to Keep when the following matters are addressed:
  • Delink all trivial chronological links, as per WP policy. Retain only if date and month are included.
  • Go through all measures to check for consistency with respect to (1) imperial/metric order (does imperial come first always?); (2) abbreviations (in vs inch); (3) hyphen between value and unit when the unit is abbreviated and it's a double attributive, e.g., '16-inch diameter', but '41 mm diameter'); and (4) non-breaking hyphens, which should be inserted in all cases where the unit is abbreviated.
  • Spell out numbers less than 10, although perhaps not for measurements. This is a matter of style, but '4 decks', '5 decks' and '8 Armored Box Launchers' are pretty unkewl.
  • Do we really need Iowa etc, in italic?

Tony 01:44, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

• • Please allow me to strike out my text; I've remove the strike-line. Tony 02:42, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

• Please clarify "trivial chronological links"; I ca not fix that until I know what that is. As for the measures, thats going to take me a little while to check, so have some patients with me. Lastly, ship names and a ship’s class name are commonly itallicised in other publications such as the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, and have appeared itallicised in news reports and online news sites. I do not see any reason to change this. TomStar81 02:30, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Sure, italic is fine in that case; the trivial chronological links are the years without dates (e.g., 1981), and periods such as 1980s and 20th century. Tony 08:27, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

• All "trivial chronological links" have been removed. TomStar81 08:49, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. I read this article yesterday when it was on the main page and it is an excellent example of a FA. Yes, the jargon can be explained better but that should have been raised on the article's talk page.--Alabamaboy 14:35, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. A Wikipedian who may be in the USN or was in the USN will clear up any confusion. "Scuttles" means to destroy one's ship to keep it out of enemy hands in wartime. Martial Law 22:05, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Technically to "scuttle" means to open holes in the hull of a boat or ship -- sinking is a common, but not required, result. In usage "scuttle" means to sink one's own ship -- though not necessarily to keep it out of enemy hands (though that was frequently the reason for it)---B- 06:16, 2 January 2006 (UTC).

• • We do have members who fill that niche, althou I only know two of them: User:Bschorr, who is a volenteer crew member aboard USS Missouri, and User:Husnock, who is actually in the USN. TomStar81 22:20, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. The quality of the article is superb, and the technical language issues are easy to solve in any case. I'd like to see many articles that currently have featured status as complete and informative as this one. Phaedriel 22:52, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. Needs some minor corrections (see the Talk page), but one of the best BB articles I've ever seen in 25yrs' reading on the subj. Trekphiler 11:49, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
• Comment Shoddy writing, inconsistent formatting, poor proofing seem to be acceptable in FAs, as if organizing a bunch of facts on a page is most of the battle won. That's just not so. Having terms without explanation or context doesn't seem such a big deal either. Seeing poor work on the front page of WP time and again really kills me. It's kind of hypocritical to point to the high-flying FA criteria, and in practice, let substandard stuff represent everyone, and then make excuses for it afterward. Try getting a grade by convincing the teacher that someone will come along and explain the terms and correct the spelling...later. This is FEATURED ARTICLE, the best of the best, not REMOVAL FROM WIKIPEDIA. (I'm not voting because I don't have time at this moment to through this thoroughly enough to fairly comment, but I did read it once quickly, and at the very least, it obvioiusly needed a good copyediting before going on the front...or not gone at all...) --Tsavage 04:51, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
• Keep I searched in vain for "shoddy writing" and other such wikisins, but there is one serious issue that does need to be addressed viz. references. They stop abruptly in the middle of the article and hence much of the information is unverifiable. Mikkerpikker 02:01, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. I'm a bit peeved by the short first two sections, but they can easily be merged. The references should be converted to the new format, but again, a minor peeve. And once we're objecting because of a couple bits of jargon, or overlinking of chronological dates, it seems clear there are no major errors that can be found. While this might (and even so, only might) hold up an FAC, this isn't good enough for an FARC. These complaints are easily fixed. So, again, keep. Johnleemk | Talk 05:16, 7 January 2006 (UTC)