Talk:Salyut 6/GA1

GA Review

The article is close to GA standards, but I see a few problems:

1) The second sentence in the lead is too complicated, in my opinion. Try to write something like: "Launched on 29 September 1977 by a Proton rocket, the station was the first 'second-generation' space station. It introduced several revolutionary advances over the earlier Soviet space stations, which it otherwise resembled in design."

2) Another sentence from the lead: "The launch of Salyut 6 allowed the Soviet space station programme to evolve from short-duration to long-duration expeditions, and marked the beginning of the transition to multi-modular, long-term research stations in space." 'allowed' is used in the previous sentence. So may I propose something like: "With the launch of Salyut 6 the Soviet space station programme evolved from short-duration to long-duration expeditions, which marked the beginning of the transition to multi-modular, long-term research stations in space."

3) TKS abbreviature should be explained or not used in the lead.

4) Again I see "five long-duration crews and 11 short-term crews". Change to "five long- and 11 short-term crews".

5) The lead does not summarise the article. For instance the telescopes, which was an important part of the station, are not mentioned at all. The lead contains the following phrase "derived from hardware left over from the cancelled Almaz military space station programme", which is not mentioned anywhere in the main text.

6) It may be better to write a new lead than to tinker with the existing one.

7) The most popular word in the article seems to be "also". In some paragraphs every sentence contains it! Please, remove 'weasel words' like 'also', 'In addition' etc.

As I am still reviewing the article, more comments will follow. Ruslik (talk) 10:32, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

I've attempted to address the issues raised so far - I'd be grateful for feedback on those changes. Thanks for taking the time to review the article! Colds7ream (talk) 16:47, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Well the lead is OK now. However I do not understand why you are using pronoun "her" for the station? Some other issues that I see:

1. At least some of the parentheses should be changed to mdashes.
2. In the tables the dates should be writen as Day Month Year (i.e. 14 March 2000), but not as 1980-04-10. WP:MOSNUM has all necessary instructions for the date formating.
3. I am not sure if the article complies with WP:EMBED. The tables at the bottom are two overwhelming, in my opinion. At least, the first table should be moved to a stand along list.

Ruslik (talk) 18:39, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Since you chose to auto format the dates this discussion may relevant. Ruslik (talk) 08:32, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, I've shifted the date format back to the Day Month Year Style, and rearranged the prose so that it doesn;t have so many brackets (you were quite right, it didn't read very well at all). However, as for the tables, I realise they make up quite a major part of the article, however I'm planning to merge them into a new prose section on the manned expeditions to the station during the push to FA which will follow this, and I was going to move them into a separate list article then. I hope this clears everything up, and thanks again for the review! Colds7ream (talk) 16:51, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

As for why I'm referring to the station as 'her', see here: Talk:Mir#"She" as a pronoun. Colds7ream (talk) 16:53, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

In Russian the word "станция" (station) is of feminine genger, of course, but only in Russian. This is the reason, why sometimes russian-speaking people use "she" and "her" for stations. On the other hand, "Mir" is of the masculine gender (like "корабль"—ship). On the other hand in English, as I know, "she" is used for ships. So you may be right here, and "she" is the most appropriate pronoun. I advise you to add a footnote explaining why "she" is used.

I think you can keep the tables, but you must not use the date autoformating (especially from ISO_8601 in the first table). In order to understand why autoformation (especially from ISO) is a bad idea, you shoud log out and see the article like an unregistered reader sees it.

So you need only to format the dates manually and I will promote article. Ruslik (talk) 10:51, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Righto - I'll get to work fixing those, and post here when I'm done. Colds7ream (talk) 18:47, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Done and done - how's that looking? :-D Colds7ream (talk) 10:02, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

I modified your note, because links to Talk pages are not allowed. Please, add an internet link where I put {{cn}} tag. Ruslik (talk) 11:34, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Done. Colds7ream (talk) 15:00, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, I will promote the article. Now it satisfies GA criteria. Ruslik (talk) 15:20, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanking you! Colds7ream (talk) 21:00, 1 September 2008 (UTC)