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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Borodino class battlecruiser/archive1

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

The article was not promoted by SandyGeorgia 20:02, 11 December 2010 [1].

Borodino class battlecruiser

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Borodino class battlecruiser (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 02:12, 13 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

These battlecruisers were laid down before the start of World War I, but the war and the subsequent internal unrest disrupted their construction and they were never completed. The Soviets contemplated several different uses for the incomplete hulls, but eventually scrapped all of them before World War II. This article passed a MilHist ACR at Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Borodino class battlecruiser and meets the criteria for FA, IMO.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 02:12, 13 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I've requested a copyedit from the GOCE.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 17:02, 2 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Which has been completed.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 00:27, 5 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments 2c is good. I want to go over to Template talk:Citation/Core and log yet another bug, this time with their handling of the volume parameter for books and works in collection... Fifelfoo (talk) 04:27, 14 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support I think that this comprehensive, well written and well sourced article meets the FA criteria. The only thing I'd note for improvement is the very minor point that the state Annapolis is located in is missing from the publishing details of Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships: 1906–1922. but included for the other two Naval Institute Press books. Nick-D (talk) 10:10, 14 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments in the Design and development section it is mentioned that the armament increased to nine 14-inch however there's no mention of how the original design was intended to be armed.
    • Added.
  • It is also said that there was a a (false) rumor that the Germans were increasing the caliber of their guns, does that refer to German battleships or battlecruisers?
    • Not specified.
  • In this same paragraph it might be useful to mention the location of the Admiralty Works when they are first mentioned.
    • Done.
  • Two paragraphs later the article mentions trials of the Gangut-class battleships' armor scheme and subsequent changes to the Borodino class armor scheme, does that imply that both armor schemes were identical? If so, that should be mentioned.
    • They were different, but shared some characteristics which had to be modified.
  • In the Propulsion section the Franco Russian Works are mentioned, where were those located?
    • Done.
  • The Fire control section is quite short, maybe it should be merged with the Armament section.
    • I disagree.
  • In the Construction section, is there a particular reason for the difference between the laid down date and the beginning of actual work?
    • Laying down the keel was a ceremonious occasion in the Russian Navy, not necessarily connected with the beginning of construction.
      • What I meant is why was construction postponed? Lack of resources? --Victor12 (talk) 20:39, 14 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        • "No actual work" did not necessarily mean "nothing at all". Before building the hull, they had to have steel rolled, cut and delivered. Before ordering steel, they had to have at least some working drawings - Design and development explains that it wasn't a textbook smooth process. Anyway, delay of only four months (Dec 1912 - Mar 1913) was lightning fast by Russian standards. East of Borschov 05:30, 18 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • The sentence The condition of the ships was assessed on 28 April 1917, but in some respects the situation was worse than shown is not clear, what was shown?
  • There's no mention of the Russian Revolution in this section so terms like "provisional government", "Congress of Shipyard Workers" and "Soviet Supreme Naval College" lack the necessary context to understand them. Some rewriting it needed here. --Victor12 (talk) 16:32, 14 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • A mention of the February Revolution suffices, I think. Thanks for your comments.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 18:15, 14 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • I still think the text is not clear enough in this section. Three different organizations are mentioned in this paragraph as deciding the future of the ships. There should be some explanation as to why were they involved in this process. --Victor12 (talk) 20:39, 14 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        • Sorry, I have no further information on the exact duties of any of these organizations, other than the government, which is self-evident.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 17:43, 19 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
          • Russian Provisional Government - link added;
          • Congress of Shipyard Workers - was just a trade union conference that pressed the govt to "give us jobs, give us food". It shouldn't be capitalized (not an organization's name), or should it?
          • The Soviet Supreme Naval College (Верховная морская коллегия) was a temporary commission of the newborn Soviet military. It's full name initially was Supreme Naval Commission on reforming the former Ministry of the Navy. The Communists took over the former Ministry, but could not actually control its bureaucracy, so they brought Pavel Dybenko and his cutthroats to make it work (well, it didn't but it's a whole different story). The Commission was created Oct. 26, 1917; on Feb. 22, 1918 it became the College of the Comissariat of the Navy. East of Borschov 08:57, 21 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Image review concerns for use of non-free File:IzmailLaunching.png and File:IzmailConstruction.jpg: Why do we need two non-free photographs of an unfinished hull (that does not help much to visualise the intended design)? Would a schematic of the ship, such as this one from [2] (have to find out which Russian book), not serve instead? Jappalang (talk) 23:03, 26 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comments
    • Any change additional images could be used to illustrate the Class-design? I noticed there are 7 images on Commons[3]
      • All of those images on Commons are not sourced and of dubious copyright status. That said, I'm looking to replace the one I have with another one that shows the overall layout.
    • I'm not an experienced editor, but I'm not convinced regarding: Wikipedia:Compare_Criteria_Good_v._Featured.
        • Are these your issues below?
      • OCLC numbers for the book sources?
        • Unneeded, IMO, when ISBNs are provided.
      • Are there available citations available online? Either as web citations or url links to book or other source references ? Google Books for example?
        • Most of my recent sources have only snippets available and it's not been worth my time to search out the ones that aren't.
      • Some page citations could be added repeated at the end of sentences to be more clear, rather than at the end of several sentences.
          • My policy to is to consolidate most citations to the same source at the end of a paragraph to avoid the sight of little blue numbers spattered throughout the text. In your example below, the cite given only covers two pages, not too difficult to find.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 02:43, 4 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        • for example, "No further proposals were made to complete Izmail as a battlecruiser, but she was almost converted into an aircraft carrier." [citation needed]

-- Aeonx (talk) 02:04, 4 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • I still can't support this yet. I'm primarily concerned with the lack of images and the lack of Online/PD references & verifiability without McLaughlin.
    • It's fine to refer to McLaughlin throughout the whole article, but there are some online references available; and I'd like to see them used, or at least listed as Further reading.
    • For example, see: http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNRussian_14-52_mk6.htm for details on the 14" gun; I don't see any harm in using more references; and in this case; it's at least one that someone can click on and find out more information. Aeonx (talk) 04:34, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • I had to pull all references to Navweaps.com as it has not been deemed "highly reliable" yet. It would have been quite useful for the details that I ordinarily include on the ships' armament. One of these days I'll write an article on the Model 1913 gun so that I can use Navweaps.com to my heart's content. Until then, however... And what "highly reliable" online sources are there on these ships? I haven't been able to find any as the qualifications for highly reliable are so strict as to eliminate most all online sources for warships. As for photos, every one that I've been able to find has been non-free use and I can't use more than one of them except under extraordinary circumstances.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 05:00, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments

Looking good, however:


  • Comments

Enjoyed it, particularly the links in with the wider political context. A couple of bits that stand out to me as a distinctly non-naval person (!) though. Would Support with those answered:

  • "vitals" : not linked, and not obvious what they are (I'm guessing engine rooms and the magazine and so on?).
    • Never really thought that it needed a link. Vitals=important stuff, including everything you mentioned.
  • " The trials employed the old pre-dreadnought battleship Chesma, modified with armor protection identical to that used by the Gangut-class battleships then under construction." My assumption when I first read this was that the trials had involved sailing and nautical handling; later on I began to suspect that they had been firing at the Chesma and testing the armour that way? It might be worth clarifying what these trials were.
    • See how it reads now.
  • "and were designed to be forced to a total" : is there a non-technical way of saying this? ("in a crisis could be called upon to produce"? "could be made to produce"?)
    • I've changed forced to pushed. Does that work for you?
  • "a progresss review " sp. - 3 sss's
    • Good catch
  • "including modifying the turrets to load at a fixed angle of 4° " - it sounds relevant, but I don't know why: could the sentence explain why its significant? (similar to the bit on the funnels, which explains the changes)
    • Fixed loading reduces the time required to load, but adds time needed to re-lay the guns on the target. I'm not sure that I can work it into the sentence.
  • "although it would have taken at least two years to build all of Izmail's turrets, if enough guns had been available." "even if" might read better?
    • Agreed.
  • "a double turret of which actually weighed slightly less than a triple 14-inch turret. " the "actually" implies that this was unusual - wasn't obvious to me why (admittedly because I know nothing about turrets!)
    • Not that unusual, deleted the actually.
  • "Four proposals were made with various changes to the armor scheme," to the armour scheme of the turrets, rather than the ship itself?
    • Yes, fixed.
  • "too large and unwieldy" - I'm not doubting the source, but why would a cargo ship or an oil barge need to be "wieldy" (or nimble etc.)? Is unwieldy really the right word here? (or is it that they'd be too big for harbours etc.?)
  • Hchc2009 (talk) 17:52, 5 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Now Support. Hchc2009 (talk) 17:02, 11 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support Comments

  • "The four Borodino class battlecruisers (also referred to as the Izmail class) of the Imperial Russian Navy were all laid down in December 1912[Note 1] at Saint Petersburg for service with the Baltic Fleet." - this is an odd way to start an article; one should first explain what they were, then explain when they were laid down etc. For example, "The Borodino class were a group of four battlecruisers commissioned by the Imperial Russian Navy before World War I but never completed. Also referred to as Izmail class, they were laid down in December 1912[Note 1] at Saint Petersburg for service with the Baltic Fleet."
    • I like most of your formulation, but the last phrase in the first sentence is redundant as the rest of the lede talks about that they were never completed.
  • "Initially the Naval General Staff wanted a ship with high speed (28 knots, 52 km/h; 32 mph), 12-inch (305 mm) guns, and limited protection (a waterline belt of 190 mm or 7.5 in); the Tsar approved construction of four such ships on 5 May 1911, but the Duma session ended before they could be voted on." - I like semicolons, but this sentence is pretty long, and could probably be split in two at the semi-colon.
  • "The Naval Ministry solicited bids from 23 shipbuilders, " - this should be the start of a new paragraph.
    • Agreed
  • "the deadline was extended by an extra month." - I think you mean "the deadline was extended by a month" - otherwise, you're implying it was extended by two months.
    • Fixed
  • "triple turrets" "three turrets" - I assume these are the same; perhaps a little explanation as to what this means, as there's no handy wikilink.
  • "45.5 million rubles for each ship" - it would be nice to know what these and other figures were worth in today's currencies (dollars or euros).
  • "The first pair was to be ready... and the other two... " - the phrases should be parallel - "first pair"-"second pair" or "first two"-"second two".
    • Done.
  • "plus the delays imposed by the large number of ship orders already in hand" - not sure what this means. Can you explain?
  • "A pair of casemates were situated on each side" - this implies two casemates on each side; is that what you mean?
    • On each side of the three rear turrets, yes, plus the six casemates on each side near the forward turret.

In general, well-written, but sentences tend to be long, and could benefit from a few commas. Also, I'm a bit concerned that it relies so heavily on one source, McLaughlin. Were there no others available? Jayjg (talk) 02:29, 17 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • McLaughlin is the only substantial source in English on these ships and I don't read Russian where there's a little more material. Thanks for looking it over.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 20:53, 19 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • The topic of Russian ships is does not receive a lot of scholarly attention. The formation of the Soviet Union and the Cold War limited most works to basic facts and conjectures (G&D in Axis and Neutral Battleships of World War II, published 1985, said something like "information on Russian ships is quite limited" due to that), and only now are some of the records being opened for study. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 21:04, 19 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose, not too happy with the writing on this one so far. Could have used a peer review, perhaps. I see the GA review was done by a ships person with no substantive feedback on the writing; this can make it a challenge to weed out jargon and so on. Not checked for copyvio, as none of the sources are accessible to me. Examples of writing problems:
      • Obviously you failed to note that it gotten a thorough review at ACR and needed very little work on jargon, as non-specialist reviewers such as Hchc2009 noted very few issues with such here.
    • "The start of World War I slowed their construction still further" What is still doing?
      • Fixed, by clarifying that the delays began when they had to revised the armor scheme after the ships had begun construction.
    • Many perplexing article and preposition choices, even in the lead (ex. why "useful for the war effort" and not useful to? The "for" construction normally precedes a gerund, such as "useful for drinking")
    • The first sentence of Design and Development is a bear... many ideas expressed there, not all clearly related. As written, it's unclear if you are building a causal relationship between Admiral Tōgō's action and the ship request, or just stating it incidentally.
      • Seems pretty clear to me that there was a causal relation between the design and what Togo did to the Russian fleet at Tsushima.
    • "Preliminary bids for these ships were solicited from private builders" The narrative grows confusing here. How were the bids solicited when there was never a vote to approve them?
      • Probably because the bids bound neither side to anything.
    • "The Russian Navy believed that widely separating the main gun magazines improved survivability and that the open sighting hoods on their turrets prevented superfiring turrets from firing their guns over the lower turret." Here I am completely lost as a general reader. I could discover what "magazines" are in this context, but you've said nothing thus far about their being widely separated. What does that mean? Far apart from each other? This sentence should follow a sentence where you describe that meaning, how far apart they were, etc. "Survivability" is jargon—I have no clues as to what that could mean here. The rest, I'm afraid is impossible to follow.
      • You may have something here about the distribution of the turrets not being properly set up. Lemme think about it. Nobody else thought survivability is jargon. It's a form of survivable, something most every reader can understand.
        • I understand the definition of the word. What I'm saying is that I don't understand how it is applied here. Survivability of what? The magazines, the guns, or the whole ship? --Andy Walsh (talk) 03:01, 22 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
          • Sorry, I hadn't noticed your responses in the barrage of other responses over the last week. OK, now I understand what you had an issue with. Clarified by referring to the survivability of the ship.
    • Next, you're writing about the bids again, after the lone sentence about it in the preceding paragraph. They were rejected for not meeting which criteria? The original or revised?
      • Whole new set of bids to the new specification. I've clarified it; see how it works for you.
    • You mention a four-turret design, but previously you wrote the specs called for nine turrets.
      • Not at all, read it again. I said three triple gun turrets.
        • I quote: "armament increased to nine 14-inch (356 mm) guns in non-superfiring triple-gun turrets". It's clearly confusing, since I read it as "nine" when you really meant to say "three groups of three". What you said just above (three triple gun turrets) is actually much better. --Andy Walsh (talk) 03:01, 22 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
          • OK, clarified it with three non-superfiring triple-gun turrets.
    • In the third para, you mention that the changed specs resulted in higher costs—I thought they were trying to lower costs per the first para.
I stopped reading here, but suffice it to say that I found it very confusing. I am very sorry to say so, because you have put a lot of work into it. I think it desperately needs a thorough copy-edit from a non-specialist. Not just a light dusting, either—someone needs to dig in a look at sentence structure, organization, and so on. --Andy Walsh (talk) 05:44, 20 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I never checked, to be honest. I don't think that it needs a link and it isn't worth my time to see if such a link exists. If your opposition is predicated on such picayune details as a link for a term that I don't think needs linking then we're done here. You've made some helpful comments, but this sort of shit is a waste of my time. At least AndyWalsh, for all that I disagree with his comments, has more substantial issues to base his oppose upon than trivial stuff like links. All of which you could have dealt with yourself if you thought that they were so important. WP:Be Bold ring a bell?--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 02:15, 22 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose, at least for now, on the basis of 1a. I agree with Andy Walsh's comments above; someone needs to go through and copyedit the whole article. A few examples:
    • "The Borodino class were ..... Since when was "class" a plural noun?
      • Fixed
    • "... the Tsar approved construction of four such ships on 5 May 1911, but the Duma session ended before they could be voted on." The Duma wasn't going to vote on the ships (they) but on the construction of the ships (it).
      • Fixed.
    • "A new specification was issued on 1 July 1911 for a design with a speed of only 26.5 knots (49.1 km/h; 30.5 mph) while the armor was increased to 254 mm (10 in) and the armament increased to nine 14-inch (356 mm) guns in three non-superfiring triple-gun turrets,[2] based on a false rumor that the Germans were increasing the caliber of their guns." That's rather a rambling sentence with a number of problems. It's too long for one thing, and designs don't have speed. "While" isn't right here either, as that implies sopme degree of simultaneity.
      • Why doesn't "while" work? Both changes were made at the same time. Split the sentence.
        • No, what's being linked here is the issue of a new specification (with a reduced design speed) and an increase in the armor. Clearly both could not have happened at the same time. Malleus Fatuorum 18:52, 29 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
          • There's not necessarily a link between the reduced speed and increased armor. It worked out this way because the Navy wasn't willing to pay for both, but it could certainly have done so if the money had been available.
    • "... and that the open sighting hoods on their turrets prevented superfiring turrets from firing their guns over the lower turret". I have no idea what any of that means. "Open sighting hoods"? "Superfiring turrets"?
      • Superfiring is linked. Clarified the rest. How does it read now?
    • "The gun turrets had the most parts ordered abroad and had the greatest problems". Rather awkwardly written.
      • Deleted as not really necessary.
    • "These were divided among four compartments on the platform deck, two each forward and aft of the machinery. These powered the complex electrical system ...".
      • Clarified.
    • "Eighteen torpedoes were carried for them." Carried for the torpedoe tubes? Seems like very strange phrasing.
      • Substituted provided for carried.
    • "50 mm plates protected the gun ports and 25 mm bulkheads separated each gun." A sentence ought not to start with a number.
      • Not any rule I'm familiar with, but I've rephrased it.
    • "... a double turret of which weighed slightly less than a triple 14-inch turret." Why "of which"?
      • Rephrased.

Malleus Fatuorum 16:35, 29 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • OK, what else?--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 17:38, 29 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • What's next is that you or someone else ought to look through the article for similar problems, as I only gave a few examples. Malleus Fatuorum 18:27, 29 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • It had a thorough copyedit at ACR, but you and AndyWalsh parse things much differently. So I'm not at all sure that asking somebody else to re-copyedit it will catch the things that you two find objectionable.
    • For instance, isn't there a "the" missing in "Also referred to as Izmail class"?
      • Yes.
    • "The incomplete hulls were later sold for scrap by the Soviet Union". They could hardly have been sold sooner.
      • Later was meant to reference the Soviet plans to finish the ships, which didn't happen, and they were sold after those plans fell through.
    • "The outbreak of the Russian Revolution in 1917 put a stop to their construction". It wasn't the outbreak of the revolution that halted their construction, it was the revolution.
      • True.
    • "... but this plan was later cancelled as a result of political maneuvering by the Red Army". Couldn't have have been cancelled sooner.
      • Related to the first usage.
    • "... the bids proved to be very high, enough so that the requirements were reconsidered". "Enough so that" is very awkward.
    • Why is "Borodino" not italicised in the infobox image caption?
      • Fixed.
  • you are using British-style dates; do you want to use British-style spelling (armour)? --Diannaa (Talk) 19:34, 2 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Update: Maintaining my opposition. While I appreciate the superficial copyedit, it needs more thorough work on structure and narrative as I mentioned previously. For example, the Construction section was barely touched, and it needs a lot of work:
    • The writing (partly through a propensity for passive voice) obscures or eliminates needed information. For example, read the first two paragraphs of the section. Any number of individuals or organizations are alluded to, but none are actually mentioned. Who completed the progress review? It was clear to whom that Russian industry couldn't complete the ships? Who reclassified? "A number of plans were made for the post-war completion of the ships" By whom? And so on.
    • The narrative remains confusing to me. Ex. "Three of the four ships were launched in 1915" Well, launched means put in water to go, yes? Later, you say that in 1917 the most complete ship had 65% of a hull. It sounds impossible to me. I understand that there is probably a logical explanation underlying it that a ship person would take for granted, but it's not accessible to the general reader.
--Andy Walsh (talk) 18:36, 5 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The problems that you mention go beyond the scope of copy editing as the information you are looking for is not present in the article as it now stands. --Diannaa (Talk) 20:06, 5 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I diasgree with you and agree with Andy. It's important to have a clear narrative, not just to make sure that the grammar and spelling are correct. That's what copyediting is about as far as I'm concerned, which is why I have such little regard for the Guild of Copyeditors. My oppose stands as well. Malleus Fatuorum 20:18, 5 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I will ask Dank if he has time to look at the article. --Diannaa (Talk) 20:31, 5 December 2010 (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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