Talk:St Elmo Bridge/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Ed! (talk · contribs) 21:02, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

Giving this one a look. —Ed!^(talk) 21:02, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

GA review (see here for criteria) (see here for this contributor's history of GA reviews)

1. It is reasonably well written:

   Pass External links, dup links and dab links look good. Copyvio detector returns green.

   • Noticing a lot of online sources calling it the "St. Elmo Bridge," though online sources can sometimes make a mistake with this sort of thing. Is there a reason no decimal included here?

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable:

   Source Spotcheck Refs 8, 14 and 15 all line up with what it cited in the article.

3. It is broad in its coverage:

   Not Yet

   • Any cost to build the original bridge?
   • "which had nets blocking the entrance to the harbour," -- unclear: So nets blocking the water below were hung from the bridge, or were there nets underwater?
   • "prompting the pilot of another craft to smash his vessel against the bridge in a suicide mission." -- I assume this craft was a human torpedo? Should be indicated and if so, "suicide mission" is redundant I would imagine.
   • "The coastal batteries subsequently opened fire ..." -- Where were these located?
   • "The project cost €2.8 million." -- Was that the installation of the bridge or the entire construction process, fabrication and all?
   • Any usage statistics for the bridge?
   • The design life in the infobox should be included in the prose as well.

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy:

   Pass No problems there.

5. It is stable:

   Pass No problems there.

6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate:

   Pass Images tagged CC and PD where appropriate.

7. Other:

   On Hold Pending a few details. —Ed!^(talk) 21:18, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

• @Ed!: Thanks for the review!

Regarding the title: I originally wrote the article (and nominated for GA) as "St. Elmo Bridge". A day after I wrote and nominated it, the article was moved to the present title "St Elmo Bridge" by another user. According to the Manual of Style, both are acceptable, but should depend upon the official usage. Both variants are used in sources, so to be honest I don't know which one is the "official" name of the bridge. Transport Malta use "St." in sources such as this, while the contractors who built the bridge use both "St" and "St." here. News sources such as the Times of Malta or The Malta Independent here and here seem to exclusively use "St". Should I move the article back to "St. Elmo Bridge", or should it be left as is?

Regarding coverage:

• Cost of original bridge: I don't know if the cost of the bridge is recorded. However I found that the total cost of the breakwater was around a million pounds, and I included that in the "Original bridge" section (I also added a footnote regarding price comparison).
• Nets at harbour entrance: The source mentioning these stated "...the first barchino was hurled at the nets below the two spans of the iron bridge at the St Elmo side of the breakwater. The nets barred entrance to Grand Harbour." I'm not sure as to the configuration of these nets, I assume they were underwater (photos of the bridge immediately after the attack, with one of the spans collapsed, do not show any nets hanging from the still-intact portion of the bridge) but I don't have any sources to directly confirm this.
• Suicide mission: The source mentioning this indicates that the pilot smashed a barchino (ie. an MT explosive motorboat), not a human torpedo, against the bridge. I edited the wording of the article to indicate this, but left the "suicide mission" part (pilots were supposed to eject out of the boat before it detonates).
• Coastal batteries: The source mentioning these only stated "At the same time the searchlights were illuminated and the coastal defence batteries nearby opened fire." I'm not 100% sure as to which batteries were in action during this attack (the whole area was well-defended with plenty of artillery batteries at the time). I found this source which mentions that the Fort Saint Elmo batteries were used to repel the attack, so I added that to the article. Possibly the batteries at Fort Ricasoli or even those of Fort Tigné were also put to action, but I can't find any sources on those.
• Cost: I assume that the €2.8 million refers to the total cost, including fabrication and installation. That figure was the estimated cost in the tender, as mentioned in this source. Sources from after it was built such as this indicate that that was the cost. I just added the latter reference near the statement regarding cost in the article as well. Should I leave everything else as is or should the part about cost be reworded?
• Usage statistics: I can't find any sources relating to this.
• Design life: done (added in prose, moved citation to prose as well)

Thank you, --Xwejnusgozo (talk) 02:35, 20 January 2019 (UTC)

Sounds good! My major points have been addressed to my satisfaction. Based on this, going to Pass the GAN as completed. Well done! —Ed!^(talk) 02:47, 20 January 2019 (UTC)

@Ed!: Thank you :) --Xwejnusgozo (talk) 10:11, 20 January 2019 (UTC)