B5 criteria assessment - discussion about lack of images

edit

Hi all, got feedback (in my talk page) about my assessment on B5 criteria, that will copy to this talk page as seems more appropriate for discussing it. Due to being busy in real life now, will proceed at most tomorrow. Regards, DPdH (talk) 12:12, 10 April 2017 (UTC)Reply

Discussion

Dear DPdH, I must say I am mystified by your classifying this ship article as "Start" rather than "B". (Note: I don't care how you classify MilHist articles.) I have had great difficulty finding photographs from before photography was invented. Some line drawings do exist, but almost exclusively of military vessels, and even then rarely for small vessels. (I have checked the NMM so I am pretty sure of this.) Similarly, paintings are rare, absent a dramatic disaster, or a chance painting of warships and large vessels. Your application of the criteria mean that almost no article on an age of sail vessel, no matter how long or well researched, could ever go beyond Start class. What really irks me is that the "B" class criteria for ship articles read for B5: "It contains appropriate supporting materials, such as an infobox, images, or diagrams." (Emphasis added.) The key word though is "OR", which is not "AND". It is very discouraging to spend hours on an article scanning through Lloyd's Register, the Register of Shipping, Lloyd's List, lists of vessels from the period, etc., to create a relatively long article, one that is highly referenced, only to have some one drive by and declare it a "Start", in defiance of the classification criteria. Regards, Acad Ronin (talk) 17:09, 9 April 2017 (UTC)Reply

Ha! I came over here for the same reason. As you say, an infobox fulfills the B5 criteria. In fact, there is no requirement that any WP article must contain a photo; even an FA class. Brad (talk) 02:31, 10 April 2017 (UTC)Reply

I don't believe there is anything left to discuss. The b5 criteria has been met at least as far as the ships project is concerned. MilHiss can do whatever they feel is appropriate but milhist b5 criteria is the same as ships criteria. Next time just say "oops sorry" instead of edit warring and making mountains out of molehills. Brad (talk) 22:37, 10 April 2017 (UTC)Reply