Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/HMS Ark Royal (91)/archive1

The following discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

HMS Ark Royal (91)[edit]

I've worked this article up to GA status, I'd like to get it up to A class now. I think it meets all the criteria. Benea (talk) 16:30, 7 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment(s): I didn't read through the whole thing becuase my eyes still hurt from staring at the computer screen to study for finals, but I did notice a few things I bring up for your consideration
- I spotted at least one instance of two citations going to the same source that were not combined, so I would suggest combining all like citations if you have not done so already.
  - I've started work on this, but I'll have to get back to finishing this a bit later.
- You note in the intro that Ark Royal served in a number of notable actions, but do not give any examples; I would suggest including one or two in the intro.
  - Some examples given - Bismarck (North Atlantic), Norway and Malta convoys (Mediterranean)
I will be back to look at the article a little later, when my eyes don't hurt as much :) TomStar81 (Talk) 02:38, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose While this article is good, it's not yet A-Class standard. The areas I think need to be improved are:
- The prose is choppy and contains far too many commas
- Many paragraphs are poorly structured, and lack an introductory sentance. For instance, the second para in the 'Hunting the Graf Spee' section starts with "She had better luck on 5 November, when she intercepted and captured the German merchant SS Uhenfels." but then focuses mainly on the ship's role in the loss of Graf Spee.
  - That specific sentence has been moved to the end of the preceding paragraph.
- Many of the sections are too short - for instance, the one para 'Bombing the Italian mainland' section should be merged into the 'Mediterranean deployment' section.
  - Merged
- Some of the wording is imprecise. As a few examples, "A flight of three Blackburn Skua aircraft was sent to disperse them [on 25 September], and one of the Dorniers was shot down, for the first enemy aerial kill of the war" - this wording should be amended to state that this was the first British aerial kill of the war. "When the Graf Spee had been trailed to Montevideo" is also problematical as Graf Spee had been forced into Montevideo to repair after fighting British cruisers, and hadn't been merely 'trailed'. "The ships took up position on 25 April, with Ark Royal keeping 120 miles offshore" also needs clarification as it's unclear what the position was or exactly what shore they were off.
  - All of these specific sections have been clarified.
- The ship's service history between her commissioning in late 1938 and the start of the war in September 1939 is missing - was she ready for war when it broke out?
  - Its reported that she was doing trials and exercises at Scapa Flow. This is in the article, do you think it needs explaining further? She was ready for war, but Ark Royal was a very different ship to any previous British carriers and they were obviously looking to learn all they could from her, but the outbreak of war caused this all to be cancelled and she joined the home fleet with the hunter killer groups.
- It may be appropriate to add an assessment of Ark Royal's design, which has been both praised for carrying more aircraft than other British carriers of the era and criticised for not being able to sustain damage. Nick Dowling (talk) 07:41, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  - The criticisms of the design are in the 'investigation' section. These criticisms only came out after the sinking, so I'd be wary of implying analyses that weren't actually made at the time. Also she was designed specifically to carry a larger number of aircraft than her predecessors, so rather than this being a matter of praise, it was just seen as fulfilling a natural design requirement.

Oppose: various issues.

Sprawling refs, needing to be consolidated, for example

^ Jameson. Ark Royal, p. 259-60.
^ Jameson. Ark Royal, p. 260.
^ Jameson. Ark Royal, p. 260.

is neater cited as 12. ^{'a b c} Jameson, Ark Royal, pp 259-260.

In refs, p. for a single page and pp for more than one.
- Working on this, as above.
Perhaps "torpedoed and sank" in the opening sentence as a ship can be torpedoed without sinking.
- Clarified, its a little more complicated than this as the torpedoing and sinking were on different days, but I've explained this in the lead.
Missing hyphens: in constructions like "purpose built", "ground breaking". (Can a ship really have a "ground breaking career"?)
- 'purpose-built' linked, 'ground breaking' has gone.
Empty sentence: she served in some of the most active naval theatres of the early stages of the war, seeing a number of notable actions.
- Examples given.
Misplaced senstence: "Her design as one of the first purpose built carriers incorporated many new features, and differed in numerous ways from previous designs. Her hull was the maximum length permitted at that time for drydocking. This was also the first time .." The logical connection betweens the firsts in setences one and three, and the maximum length for drydocking in setence two, eludes me.
- Reworded section, the implication was of 'first, biggest, etc' but I've moved the second sentence to the part discussing the hull design where it fits more naturally.

Echoing Nick, a close copy-edit is in order, I think. (Maralia?)

--ROGER DAVIES ^talk 08:10, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose until a thorough copyedit is complete, as I suggested when I passed this article as a GA. (WP:MHL#COPYEDIT is available, and did wonders for me on an article I've been working on long-term.) -MBK₀₀₄ 08:26, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - thanks for all the points raised. It would be really helpful if when you notice a problem like imprecise wording, or similar, you could give the specific issue. I've been through this many times and having been accustomed to it, it tends to read fine, but once its pointed out by fresh eyes I can act on it. Thanks again, Benea (talk) 14:38, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.