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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was kept 21:10, 21 February 2008.

F-4 Phantom II

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Review commentary

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Notified - Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Aviation, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history and about a dozen recent editors.

There are relatively few inline citations in some sections of the F-4 Phantom II article. These are needed to show verification. See criteria Wikipedia:Featured article criteria 1c. Snowman (talk) 11:05, 17 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The "flying the Phantom" section needs to be enhanced, to show why it was so popular.
Further, it might be useful to break out the gun and smoke concerns, and put them, with such things as the other country modification requests, to put them into a section on "problems, fixes, and variants" Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 15:57, 17 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
A candidate for GA or FA cannot have any {{fact}} tags. This one has two, one in the Iran section, one in the Preserved aircraft section. The one in the Iran section is in the middle of a sentence, and there's a ref at the end of the sentence which cites a book. Whoever has this book needs to check to see if the ref covers the bit of info that's tagged. I've made a few minor changes, combining the two redundant sections that refer to the Collings Foundation plane, and added a caption to a thumb, because without a caption, thumbs squish the text to the left when viewed in some editions of netscape. AKRadeckiSpeaketh 17:35, 17 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

FAR candidates should have {{fact}} tags in the article body since contributers need to see where the problems are and thus what needs to be cited. My suggestions for improvement are as follows:

  • The lead section is too short, and provides insuffucent context for the rest of the article. It needs to be expanded.
  • Any claims related to numerical values should be cited. Case in point: "overview", paragraph one: "When production ended in 1981, 5,195 Phantom IIs had been built, making it the most numerous American supersonic military aircraft. Until the advent of the F-15 Eagle, the F-4 also held a record for the longest continuous production with a run of 24 years." Most numerous and longest continous production need cites.
  • Is it absolutely nessicary to have so many tables in the article body? They do convey the information accurately, bu they seem a little out of place and in my opinion unessicarily extend the length of the article.
  • Why do we need a specification section at the bottom? Can that information be presented in the top infobox like our ships articles, or is that not possible?

Remember these are only suggestions, so feel free to ingore them. Good luck on the FAR. TomStar81 (Talk) 21:34, 17 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You are correct, and I mis-typed...a candidate can have the fact tags, but to be promoted there can't be any. As for the specs section at the bottom, that's part of the WP:AIR page layout, and should be there. AKRadeckiSpeaketh 21:47, 17 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concern is referencing (1c). Marskell (talk) 19:33, 9 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It would be helpful to know where references/cites are needed. The article already has a large number of references.Nigel Ish (talk) 20:54, 13 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Revisted later, see below. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:25, 14 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Lots of fixes needed to be brought to standard. Unformatted references; external link farm needs to be pruned per WP:EL, WP:RS, WP:NOT; layout doesn't conform with WP:GTL; irritating amount of WP:MOSBOLD breaches throughout; portals belong in See also and commons belong in External links; WP:DASH breaches throughout (endashes on page and number ranges); short, stubby and listy sections (see Preserved Phantoms as one example, but many sections are listy); WP:UNITS breaches everywhere I checked, no non-breaking hardspaces; WP:MOSDATE issues (solo years aren't linked); Wikilinking needs attention (noticed Sandia labs); WP:MOS#Captions punctuation on sentence fragments; text redundancies indicating need for copyedit (However, acquisition of the Phantom would have required disbanding at least one Dassault Mirage III squadron in order to provide the necessary aircrew ... ); WP:FN footnote placement (I'll fix that); sentences that start with numbers (WP:MOSNUM); numbers less than 10 should be spelled out (WP:MOSNUM, sample: Cunningham and Driscoll would become aces for the USN by shooting down 5 or more enemy aircraft ... ); inadequate WP:LEAD. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:53, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Just out of curiosity - where does the layout not conform with WP:GTL? --Rlandmann (talk) 11:52, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Actually it does. WP:GTL says: It is okay to change the sequence of these appendices, but the "Notes" and "References" sections should be next to each other. [They are] For example, you may put "See also" above "Further reading" or "Notes and references" above "See also". I believe the burden of Sandy's complaint is it is more usual to put the External Links last, but it is not required. There seem to be clear reasons for the order you have chosen, which should be enough for any rational reviewer. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:15, 23 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Draft enlarged lead paras are here. Please comment here or on the article talk page.Nigel Ish (talk) 22:56, 19 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Revised lead paras have now been moved to the article.Nigel Ish (talk) 12:19, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • Am I looking at the same article as SandyGeorgia? I've managed to find one incidence within (not throughout) the main body of text where a hyphen was used instead of an endash, plus a few within the reference footnotes. She states "WP:UNITS breaches everywhere I checked, no non-breaking hardspaces"—having checked through the scores of entries, non-breaking hardspaces were everywhere excepting two or three instances that needed correcting. Similarly WP:MOSNUM breaches—just a couple of numerals below 10, and it could be argued that one of those was part of a list and should have been left as it was for consistency. I'll check again, but I couldn't find a sentence that started with numerals rather than written numbers. I agree that all of these MOS guidelines should be adhered to, but disagree with the comments about listy sections—lists are sometimes the best means of dealing with some types of information.
Have I been staring at the page for too long or have I misunderstood something? --Red Sunset 21:35, 22 December 2007 (UTC) Update: I've dealt with a sentence starting with a number, and replaced some bolding in the body of the text with quotation marks and removed the rest. --Red Sunset 18:03, 23 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Requirement to follow MOS: Please do not be deceived by Manderson's entreaties to ignore Criterion 2. While WPians "should follow" MOS in all article, FAs have a special imperative. The rationale is that without some kind of centralised guidance as to style and formatting, the project will lose cohesion and readers may as well just google their query. Standardisation—in moderation—is one thing that lends WP authority and makes it easier to write and read (even though contributors have to read and absorb the guidelines, sorry). Over the past six months, Manderson and one or two off-siders have been mounting a campaign to reduce MOS to the status of mere dawdlings that should be ignored or followed as you please. The campaign has, at its worst, taken on a personal edge, as you see above. Tony (talk) 00:23, 23 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Now, there are silly things that aren't hard to fix: read MOS on final period in captions. The first one, for example, is not a full sentence, but a noun phrase ("F-4E" is the head; "USAF" is the premodifier and the rest is the postmodifier. Please audit thoughout. (The second caption is a full sentence.) "not broken" --> "unbroken" (just a little more normal). I've removed the autoformatting from the full dates in one section, to discover that the wrong raw format was used (see new rules at MOSNUM). This is a US-related article, yes? You no longer have to autoformat, and not doing so shows up what 99% of our readers see (here, the wrong format). MOS says avoid bold except right at the start.

  • The clause is five of the speed records were not broken until 1975. It might be better to make this positive: were broken only in 1975. (and I'm not sure, the stress is on the length of time the record endured), but unbroken does not sound idiomatic here. Third opinion? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:40, 23 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's otherwise an excellent article. I hope the contributors can fix it up (a few refs needed, too). Tony (talk) 00:39, 23 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Strong retain It is an excellent article; none of Tony's nitpicks affect the clarity or content on the article. MOScruft should always be ignored; for example, WP:MOSDATE is a recommendation - nothing stronger would have consensus. It is not grounds to oppose; as above. If some editor wishes to revise the article for this and there is consensus to let him, fine; if not, no matter how many hobby-horses are stalled at the so-called Manual of Style, they will not make the difference between an article which is FA and one which is not. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:55, 23 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • As for citation: this is another article with a primary source: The book by David Donald and Jon Lake, specifically on the F-4, supplemented by the article by Fricker on the Phantom. As with other articles, please supply a list of assertions which are both likely to challenged and do not have an obvious source; and I will see if I can lay hands on the sources. (It will not be immediate; the holidays will interfere.) Mere vague grumbles are not actionable. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:08, 23 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Mostly corrected, will revisit once sources are straightened out. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:29, 14 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Fixes still needed. Checking back, almost two weeks later. I see numerous improvements, but work still needed. There is still incorrect use of bolding for emphasis in the text (see WP:MOSBOLD, example: The F-4Ds reverted to using Sidewinders under the Rivet Haste program in early 1968, ... ). There are still copyedit needs (sample: The Spook has followed the Phantom around the world adopting local fashions, for example, the British Spook sometimes wears a bowler hat and smokes a pipe.[44] and re-adapted to the US "Phantom Man".) Also, the prose suffers from WP:PROSELINE in the "World record breaker" section. There are citation tags. There are undefined acronyms (example, DASA). There's a strange section called "Preserved Phantoms" which looks like a list of trivia, yet has a strange access date as if it's actually a list of references (??). There are also external jumps in that section. There are still unformatted references with no publishers identified (see WP:CITE/ES). There are still WP:GTL issues (commons belong in External links, not See also, and per WP:MOS, external links should be last). Another few days, leaning towards Remove. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:17, 28 December 2007 (UTC) oops, one more, the bolding and linking in the first line of the article is incorrect, see WP:LEAD. There are also WP:MOSNUM issues (example: The Navy claimed 40 air-to-air victories at the cost of 71 Phantoms lost in combat (five to aircraft, 13 to SAMs, and 53 to AAA).) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:25, 28 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I wrote the revision that originally received the FA status. A few comments:
    • The article was originally written to follow the WP:Air MOS, please familiarize yourself with it before commenting on "why the specs are at the bottom" etc.
    • The reason I no longer actively participate in Wikipedia is because I got tired of constant bastardization (even if well-intentioned) of other people's hard work (yes, WP:Own blah blah blah). The original MOS-compliant long lead was rapidly pruned by people screaming about the length of text, the country sections got bloated with nationalistic drivel, the fanboys dragged in links and unreferenced material from lord-knows-where, etc. As they say, "if you don't want your work edited by others, don't contribute" and I took that advice to heart. Will be happy to return to Wikipedia when the rights of productive contributors will be valued above those of idiot children with Internet access. - Emt147 Burninate! 05:54, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    • I'm not willing to close this with substantial work in the recent history. Can we do this basic thing first: every reference (web and book) gets a listed publisher. That done, we can come back and discuss the massive TOC. (Perhaps the countries can be spun off to a separate list.) Marskell (talk) 18:32, 25 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    I left a series of sample edits to show how to format refs to identify publishers. In the few sections I worked on, I found numerouos sources of dubious reliability, personal websites, etc. This article needs massive amounts of work to come to standard. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:18, 25 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Questionable sources found so far in F-4 Phantom II‎.

    1. Greg Goebel's http://www.vectorsite.net/
    2. Somebody named Joe Baugher, whose personal webpage index is dead: http://home.att.net/~jbaugher/ (These two are the source for an enormous portion of the article).
    3. Can't determine authorship here: http://www.tomcatalley.com/ Removed
    4. Personal website of Tornsten Anft http://www.anft.net/f-14/torsten.htm Removed
    5. Can't determine authorship here, and whether this is a "real" or "virtual" museum: http://www.wingsandrotors.org/ Real
    6. Can't determine authorship here: http://www.aero-web.org/
    7. Someone named Richard Seaman, The Flying Kiwi: http://www.richard-seaman.com/ Replaced
    8. Commercial, personal website: http://www.flightchief.com/about.html Removed
    9. No idea how to locate this: Lewis, David S. Jr. Personal Memoirs. 1993. Replaced

    SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:03, 25 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    That's all I can do for now, until the reliability of sources is sorted out ... can someone please check this edit? Something was off in the dates. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:26, 25 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    I checked out the Joe Baugher guy, and he seems fairly reliable. His website may look amateurish, but the articles he writes are sourced and well-written. According to his bio, he has a PhD and has published books and articles in the academic world. Of course, that doesn't mean that relying on his site meets Wikipedia's standards. Given that he lists his sources, perhaps an editor with access to a library can use them instead. BuddingJournalist 14:56, 28 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    I looked and couldn't see a single publication that was aviation related. Thus he doesn't meet policy. He's definitely of a better cut than your average hobbyist, so it is tough. Marskell (talk) 20:03, 29 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • These are the sources listed at the bottom of virtually every Phantom article on Baugher's page, please look again.
    • McDonnell Douglas Aircraft Since 1920: Volume II, Rene J. Francillon, Naval Institute Press, 1990.
    • McDonnell F-4 Phantom: Spirit in the Skies. Airtime Publishing, 1992.
    • Modern Air Combat, Bill Gunston and Mike Spick, Crescent, 1983.
    • The American Fighter, Enzo Angelucci and Peter Bowers, Orion, 1987.
    • Post-World War II Fighters: 1945-1973, Marcelle Size Knaac, Office of Air Force History, 1986.
    • The World Guide to Combat Planes, William Green, Macdonald, 1966.
    • The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Aircraft Armament, Bill Gunston, Orion, 1988.
    • The World's Great Attack Aircraft, Gallery, 1988.
    I would say that he has made a large effort to show that his pages are not original research. Nimbus227 (talk) 00:13, 14 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Perhaps you're misunderstanding Marskell's input. Unless Baugher himself has academic publications in reliable sources related to aviation, his personal website does not get an exemption from our sourcing policies. If he cites those sources on his webpages, those are the sources that should be located and used to cite our article. We can't take his (personal website's) word for it. We use the reliable sources. He can make mistakes. Since he's given you the sources, you all can locate and use those. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:20, 14 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Re-checking, now almost two months into review and three weeks since my last post, I don't see that any one of the 9 sources listed above has been addressed or removed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:02, 13 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Sure, sorry my mistake, keen to show that things are being addressed, Commons has been moved into external links by someone, that has not been acknowledged either. Nimbus227 (talk) 00:21, 14 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    No problem; don't sweat the little stuff in the lists above. I think most of it has been attended to, but will recheck once the more important policy issue of WP:V is sorted out. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:23, 14 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Yes of course, that is where it should be, I was highlighting the fact that you had moved it there, which solved an earlier complaint of it being in the wrong place. With regard to the list of sources Baugher uses, I was replying to the direct comment 'could not see a single publication that was aviation related', hopefully that was not unreasonable. Flying Kiwi reference removed BTW. Nimbus227 (talk) 00:38, 14 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    * After many edit conflicts, Marskell was referring to our policy on self-published sources. Baugher doesn't appear to be a published aviation expert, so his website isn't "exempt" from our policy. He cites his sources; we should use those sources. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:48, 14 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    (Return) The second source listed by Baugher is being used in this article, I note that he lists 'American Fighter' by Angelucci, this has not been used but I have this book and have only just realised its importance here. Will see how many contested references that I can replace with it. Nimbus227 (talk) 01:00, 14 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    A new, unformatted ref has crept in: ^ Kunsan Airbase F-4 Phantom II SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:22, 14 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Would [2] count as a WP:RS? It appears to be the product of the Malta Aviation Society - and has an (un-named) editor. If it passes muster it may be able to allow some of the remaining Baugher links to be removed.Nigel Ish (talk) 19:28, 14 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    It looks like (maybe I'm wrong?) that source just takes its info directly from Baugher, which is according to what I've been told, an issue in a lot of aviation literature (other sources duplicate Baugher's content, rather than going back to reliable sources, so errors may get propogated). Unless convinced otherwise, I'm inclined to say no, and to prefer ya'll go back to the original published sources that Baugher uses. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:35, 14 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Continued

    Added a header to make editing easier. Yes, that Kunsan reference is copied from Baugher, if someone could look in the books that he mentions to find the original reference for naming that would be useful, I don't have it in my references. I have replaced some more Baugher references and a vectorsite reference. Nimbus227 (talk) 13:51, 19 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    Baugher is basically gone. I won't hold it up for one out of ninety. One last thing is a bit ToC rationalizing. For instance, the Design and development section begins "The origins of McDonnell’s..." and yet two subheadings down we have Origins again (should Attack Fighter be capitalized there?). Stub sections, such as Naming the aircraft can be merged. Flight testing can probably go into Flight characteristics. The countries list is still a bit unsightly, but at least its out of the ToC. That done, I think this can finally close. Marskell (talk) 12:38, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    I have acted on most of your comments and agree that the article looks better for it. There is often a naming header in aircraft articles which helps readers to go straight to that section, I have expanded that section slightly and it can be further expanded when we find a good reference (it appears James McDonnell named it himself). I had a look at the 'non-US operators' section, the spacing problems are being caused by the table position (which I tried to move slightly but it did not work) and the possibly excessive number of photos filling the right side of the page. Perhaps some of these photos could be moved to the main article on that section. I am glad that the article is no longer in the 'danger zone' and as it is on many editors watchlists now hopefully we can maintain the standard. Cheers. Nimbus227 (talk) 13:41, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Nice work. You still have this unformatted citation (Kunsan Airbase F-4 Phantom II); I think that's a reliable source, not sure? This needs more info (United States Naval Aviation 1910-1995 - Part 9 - The Sixth Decade 1960–1969. Naval Historical Centre. ) like accessdate. Can anything be done to replace Goebel (Goebel, Greg. Phantom Over Southeast Asia. Vectorsite.net. Retrieved: January 18, 2008. ) although I agree we shouldn't hold up over one or two citations. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:41, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    The Kunsan Airbase website is a copy of the relavent Baugher page - However if all else fails the referenced info is also found here

    and here

    Nigel Ish (talk) 20:26, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    IMO, it's close enough. I don't enter a keep as long as there are a few outstanding issues, but I think we can close this one if Marskell's other organizational issues are addressed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:29, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    While the references may not be quite perfect, and my organizational issues aren't quite perfectly addressed, there's also no perfect article. More than three months on, this can be kept; these enormous reviews have to be closed eventually. Congratulations to all involved! Marskell (talk) 21:08, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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