Talk:Christopher C. Kraft Jr.

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Christopher C. Kraft Jr. is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do so.

This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on July 20, 2007.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
December 3, 2006	Good article nominee	Listed
December 29, 2006	WikiProject peer review	Reviewed
January 7, 2007	Peer review	Reviewed
January 10, 2007	Featured article candidate	Promoted
June 4, 2022	Featured article review	Kept
A news item involving this article was featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "In the news" column on July 23, 2019.
A fact from this article was featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "On this day..." column on February 28, 2024.
Current status: Featured article

Spaceflight High‑importance

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Pritzker Military Library Mid‑importance

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Plans[edit]

I will be expanding this article section by section, hoping to get it to GA status or beyond. Any comments or help are most welcome. MLilburne 10:00, 1 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

GA[edit]

Congrats on a Good Article. It does draw heavily from Kraft's autobiography, but still demostrates a well-written and researched article. Well done! Check-Six 21:38, 3 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Great article![edit]

A worthy addition to the FA line, especially today is the anniversary of the original moon landing. RashBold (talk · contribs) 05:06, 20 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I second this sentiment. Bravo! to all the editors who contributed to this. Well done! Hamster Sandwich 10:46, 20 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Awards and Honors[edit]

The article says that Kraft Elementary School is in Hampton, VA near Kraft's hometown, Phoebus, VA. I was wondering if this should be changed, as Phoebus is now a defunct city and has been absorbed into Hampton. Any thoughts? Andrew Elgert 13:53, 20 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Spoken article[edit]

I've started recording this as a spoken article. Just thought I should say, to avoid duplication of effort. Angus Lepper^{(T, C, D)} 17:06, 20 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Broken reference link[edit]

Link #2 (Nystrom, re: Ruffner Medal") is broken and does not link to the article in question; there are other pages online which note him winning the award, but I haven't found anything with the material that's referenced. P.S. Which birthday is correct, the one in the intro or the one in the infobox? MisfitToys 23:07, 21 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry about the delay in replying. I've fixed the birthdate. As for the link, it is broken but can be chased up via the Wayback Machine. I'll fix that too. MLilburne 09:56, 27 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

ref consolidation[edit]

I think we should strive to have great reference consolidation. Personally, I do not need a footnote down to the exact page. I can deal with a ten-to-twenty page range to find information. That would significantly reduce the number of total references we have on this page, which are very repetitive and odd-looking, especially the ones to Kraft's own Flight. Clearly done by an engineer.--SallyForth123 17:34, 21 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I assure you I'm not an engineer, although I'm flattered you think so! The purpose of references is to allow readers to look up the source of the information if they want to know more. Full citations do include exact page numbers, as you will see from Wikipedia:Citing_sources. I'm sorry it looks odd to you, but that's the accepted way to do things. MLilburne 08:50, 23 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal to remove date-autoformatting[edit]

Dear fellow contributors

MOSNUM no longer encourages date autoformatting, having evolved over the past year or so from the mandatory to the optional after much discussion there and elsewhere of the disadvantages of the system. Related to this, MOSNUM prescribes rules for the raw formatting, irrespective of whether a date is autoformatted or not). MOSLINK and CONTEXT are consistent with this.

There are at least six disadvantages in using date-autoformatting, which I've capped here:

Disadvantages of date-autoformatting

(1) In-house only

(a) It works only for the WP "elite".
(b) To our readers out there, it displays all-too-common inconsistencies in raw formatting in bright-blue underlined text, yet conceals them from WPians who are logged in and have chosen preferences.
(c) It causes visitors to query why dates are bright-blue and underlined.

(2) Avoids what are merely trivial differences

(a) It is trivial whether the order is day–month or month–day. It is more trivial than color/colour and realise/realize, yet our consistency-within-article policy on spelling (WP:ENGVAR) has worked very well. English-speakers readily recognise both date formats; all dates after our signatures are international, and no one objects.

(3) Colour-clutter: the bright-blue underlining of all dates

(a) It dilutes the impact of high-value links.
(b) It makes the text slightly harder to read.
(c) It doesn't improve the appearance of the page.

(4) Typos and misunderstood coding

(a) There's a disappointing error-rate in keying in the auto-function; not bracketing the year, and enclosing the whole date in one set of brackets, are examples.
(b) Once autoformatting is removed, mixtures of US and international formats are revealed in display mode, where they are much easier for WPians to pick up than in edit mode; so is the use of the wrong format in country-related articles.
(c) Many WPians don't understand date-autoformatting—in particular, how if differs from ordinary linking; often it's applied simply because it's part of the furniture.

(5) Edit-mode clutter

(a) It's more work to enter an autoformatted date, and it doesn't make the edit-mode text any easier to read for subsequent editors.

(6) Limited application

(a) It's incompatible with date ranges ("January 3–9, 1998", or "3–9 January 1998", and "February–April 2006") and slashed dates ("the night of May 21/22", or "... 21/22 May").
(b) By policy, we avoid date autoformatting in such places as quotations; the removal of autoformatting avoids this inconsistency.

Removal has generally been met with positive responses by editors. Does anyone object if I remove it from the main text (using a script) in a few days’ time on a trial basis? The original input formatting would be seen by all WPians, not just the huge number of visitors; it would be plain, unobtrusive text, which would give greater prominence to the high-value links. Tony (talk) 13:03, 23 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In film[edit]

I've removed the following from the "In film" section:

"...by John P. Ryan in The Right Stuff (although the role is credited as "NASA Administrator"), and by Joe Spano in the movie Apollo 13 (although the role is credited as "NASA Director").

I see no evidence that either of those characters had anything to do with Kraft or were based on him. The Ryan character from the Right Stuff is, first of all, a broad caricature. Second, it's a broad caricature of T. Keith Glennan and James E. Webb. The Joe Spano role in Apollo 13 is obviously Thomas O. Paine. Mackensen (talk) 03:30, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified[edit]

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FA concerns[edit]

Hi page watchers: I have reviewed this article as part of WP:URFA/2020, an initiative to review featured articles promoted before 2016 to ensure they meet the FA criteria. Unfortunately, I have some concerns with this article, which I outline below:

The biggest problem is the article is mostly sourced to Kraft's book, which makes it a primary source. Per WP:PSTS, primary sources are fine to use but articles should be based on reliable secondary sources. Are there other sources that can be used to replace the primary source footnotes?
There are lots of sources listed in the references section that are not directly cited in the article. These should be consulted and used in the article (perhaps to replace some primary source footnotes) or removed if they are not of high-quality.
Some sections of the article, such as "Autobiography", "Personal life" and "Awards and honors" have short paragraphs. I suggest that this article be copyedited and shorter paragraphs be merged.

Is anyone interested in fixing up this article? Z1720 (talk) 15:26, 21 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]