Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates/French battleship Iéna/archive1

TFA blurb review[edit]

Iéna was a pre-dreadnought battleship built for the French Navy (Marine Nationale). Laid down at Brest in January 1898, the vessel was launched on 1 September and completed on 14 April 1902. The ship was assigned to the Mediterranean Squadron and remained there for the duration of her career. Iéna frequently served as a flagship, participated in the annual fleet manoeuvres and made many visits to French ports in the Mediterranean. On 4 March 1907, while docked for repairs in Toulon, the battleship was badly damaged and 120 people were killed by a magazine explosion that was probably caused by the decomposition of old propellant, known as Poudre B. Multiple investigations were launched and the ensuing scandal forced the naval minister to resign. While repairs were possible, Iéna was deemed neither worth the time nor the expense. The salvaged hulk was used as a gunnery target in 1909 before it was sold for scrap in 1912. (Full article...)

~~937~~ 950 characters, including spaces.

Hi Sturm and congratulations. A draft blurb for this article is above. Thoughts, comments and edits from you or from anyone else interested are welcome. Gog the Mild (talk) 21:46, 14 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, I'm a little concerned with the many convolutions of the middle sentences, although I can't think of better way to reword them.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 14:43, 17 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Sturmvogel 66: How's:

Iéna was a pre-dreadnought battleship built for the French Navy (Marine Nationale). Laid down at Brest in January 1898, the vessel was launched on 1 September and completed on 14 April 1902. Iéna was assigned to the Mediterranean Squadron and remained there for the duration of her career. ~~She~~ The ship frequently served as a flagship, participated in the annual fleet manoeuvres and made many visits to French ports in the Mediterranean. On 4 March 1907, while docked for repairs in Toulon, the ship was badly damaged and 120 people were killed by a magazine explosion. This was probably caused by the decomposition of old propellant, known as Poudre B. Multiple investigations were launched and the ensuing scandal forced the naval minister to resign. While repairs were possible, the ship was not thought worth the time or expense. The salvaged hulk was used as a gunnery target in 1909 before it was sold for scrap in 1912. (Full article...)

Gog the Mild (talk) 15:28, 17 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The "She" that was just inserted feels unnecessary, and we get pushback on the Main Page fairly often to "This was", but I'm not taking a position here. - Dank (push to talk) 17:57, 17 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Iéna was a pre-dreadnought battleship built for the French Navy (Marine Nationale). Laid down at Brest in January 1898, the vessel was launched on 1 September and completed on 14 April 1902. The ship was assigned to the Mediterranean Squadron and remained there for the duration of her career. Iéna frequently served as a flagship, participated in the annual fleet manoeuvres and made many visits to French ports in the Mediterranean. On 4 March 1907, while docked for repairs in Toulon, the battleship was badly damaged and 120 people were killed by a magazine explosion that was probably caused by the decomposition of old propellant, known as Poudre B. Multiple investigations were launched and the ensuing scandal forced the naval minister to resign. While repairs were possible, Iéna was deemed neither worth the time nor the expense. The salvaged hulk was used as a gunnery target in 1909 before it was sold for scrap in 1912. (Full article...)

I think that it's better not to use words containing "ship" very close together so I've moved some of them around. I'm a little tempted to use "nor the expense" in the second-to-last sentence. What say y'all?--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 19:51, 17 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Sturmvogel 66: Looks good to me at 931 characters. Personally, I would always use nor in that construction; which in turn means that you need the the. Gog the Mild (talk) 20:18, 17 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I sometimes see "nor" used by itself, but I agree with you as a general rule.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 20:38, 17 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

"nor": no preference.

"ships": ship, battleship, vessel ... many options. And of course, combining two sentences can remove the need for a subject (at the cost of convoluted sentences, sometimes).

"she": There's zero advantage to me to getting involved in the debate, so I won't. TFA used to be a backwater, and I liked it that way, but it's not a backwater now. Now, we have to take a little bit of care not to be a battleground ... and "she" is something people like to fight about these days. So I'd prefer to do without "she", but it wasn't my call before, and I'm even less inclined to get involved now, to avoid interfering with Gog's efforts. - Dank (push to talk) 20:25, 17 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Personally, I'd prefer to tell 'em to stick it, but I really don't pay much attention to the TFA talk page and would therefore miss any ensuing furor, so I've changed it.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 20:38, 17 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Sturm. You happy(ish) to run with that version? Gog the Mild (talk) 20:43, 17 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Yep. I doubt that I'd have thought of using "battleship" if Dan hadn't suggested it as a possibility, as I tend not to those sorts of synonyms, but it works much better than another repetition of "the ship" which would have been my first choice.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 20:52, 17 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Sturmvogel 66: yeah, Dank is good. He makes me feel inadequate, which is probably good for my character. Gog the Mild (talk) 20:54, 17 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Good for both of us, I think.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 20:55, 17 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I've been studying a very small part of Wikipedia for a long time now ... so I better know a thing or two about it that other people miss sometimes, or else I should be ashamed of myself. You two are more in the knowing-everything-about-everything camp. - Dank (push to talk) 00:32, 18 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Btw, I think we're all agreed that it would be silly to write an article, or usually even a whole lead, trying to avoid all pronoun references to ships. Blurbs are mercifully short. - Dank (push to talk) 02:43, 18 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]