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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II in Australian service/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 promoted by GrahamColm 14:25, 18 December 2012 [1].

McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II in Australian service

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McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II in Australian service (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): Nick-D (talk) 06:29, 24 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This article covers the brief service history of the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II fighter bomber with the Royal Australian Air Force. While the RAAF chose to acquire General Dynamics F-111Cs instead of F-4s in the early 1960s, severe delays to the development of the F-111s led the Australian Government to lease 24 Phantoms from the United States Air Force at a cut-rate price. The aircraft were in service with the RAAF from late 1970 until mid-1973, and proved so successful that the Air Force sought to retain them as well as the F-111s.

Given the short, and largely uneventful, service history of these aircraft with Australia this article is much shorter and simpler than is the case for most of my FA nominations. However, it's comprehensive, and draws on all the few published works which describe this topic in detail. The article was assessed as GA class in July and passed a Military History wikiproject A class review in October. It's since been expanded and copy edited, and I think that it now also meets the FA criteria. Note that I have received dispensation to have two FACs open at the same time [2]. Thanks in advance for your comments. Nick-D (talk) 06:29, 24 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose on prose quality. Fuller review to follow within 24 hours. --MarchOrDie (talk) 19:45, 25 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Sorry to be a little late! Here's my review.
  • Lead para: "successful"... "unsuccessful"... "successful" grates somewhat; "played an important role in improving the force's professional standards"; can you explain this?
Hmm. On a Featured Article I think I would disagree that there would be much place for this kind of language. WP:EDITORIAL says "Words such as but, however, and although may imply a relationship between two statements where none exists, perhaps inappropriately undermining the first or giving undue precedence to the credibility of the second." The current version has two examples:
  1. "The RAAF accepted all 24 F-111Cs at a ceremony held at Fort Worth, Texas, on 4 September 1968. However, at this time the F-111 program was in crisis due to technical problems with the design of the aircraft's wing assembly, and all of the USAF and RAAF's F-111s were grounded after an American F-111 crashed on 23 September; at this time the Australian aircraft were still in the United States."
  2. "Ground attack missions were practiced from February 1971, and in June that year the Phantoms began dropping live bombs during exercises. Shortages of spare parts complicated the process of bringing the aircraft into service at times, however."

Do these two uses fulfil "well-written: its prose is engaging, even brilliant, and of a professional standard"? I think I am still leaning towards "no". I think it would be fairly easy to improve the wording to remove this infelicity. --MarchOrDie (talk) 17:20, 30 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • With all respect, I've actually used this language in multiple FAs (see, for instance, Australian contribution to the Battle of Normandy which passed last week). I'm far from alone in doing so - as a semi-random example, the FA currently on the main page (Youngstown, Ohio) also uses 'however' in this way; it's a perfectly normal phrase. In regards to your two concerns here 1) There's a clear link between the two concepts as at the time the RAAF accepted the aircraft the program was in real trouble (the acceptance of the aircraft at this time turned into a major embarrassment for the government and RAAF once the extent of the problems became known, but that's a topic for the F-111C article) 2) the word emphasizes that the process of bringing the F-4s into service (the subject of the paragraph) wasn't all sweetness and light, and doesn't give undue emphasis to this in the context of the full paragraph (which, rightly, emphasizes the successful introduction of this type into RAAF service) - again, the two concepts are linked. In regards to WP:EDITORIAL, it's about introducing relationships which aren't in the sources, which isn't the case here. Nick-D (talk) 22:46, 30 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thank you for the respect. However isn't a phrase, it's a word. I think, with all my respect, that you're missing the point here. However expresses an opinion that the second data point contradicts the first. There is no contradiction beween the RAAF buying a plane that then turned out to be temporarily unflyable. This kind of thing happens fairly often with new types. The sentence would work just as well without the however. Likewise the second example; there's no real contradiction between the Phantom being certified to drop live ordnance and becoming operational later than predicted. Again this is fairly common and again the sentence wouldn't be the poorer for just removing it, in my opinion. --MarchOrDie (talk) 01:39, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • OK, fair enough on the second sentence; I've re-checked the source, and have tweaked it so it reads better and is more interesting. In regards to the first point, it's important to note that there is a contradiction - the RAAF didn't 'buy a plane'; it took formal delivery of these aircraft (which means that they're meant to be flown in combat and all other situations). They also weren't 'temporarily unflyable': their design was so flawed that they came close to being scrapped, and it took 5 years to fix the problems (hence the need for the Phantoms, which as the article notes would have also been the RAAF's fall back had the F-111s proved unfixable, as was thought to be the case at times). As such, the word is appropriate given the contradiction between accepting these planes and the true state of the aircraft at the time. I'd be open to your suggestion for how this could be re-worded though. Nick-D (talk) 02:40, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • (Note: as part of the above comment I also accidentally posted some comments which contained a totally untrue statement about MarchOrDie. I drafted these comments only as a means of venting to myself, and they don't reflect my actual views. I've apologised to MarchOrDie on their talk page, and would also like to publicly do so here). Nick-D (talk) 03:18, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • I see Nick removed one "however" and kept the other, and this seems right to me (after a small tweak, which I made). It's up to the delegates if MarchOrDie opposes, of course, but I don't believe the delegates will have a problem with the sole remaining "however". (It wouldn't bother me, though, if they object ... there are a lot of POVs on "however", and I can support anything reasonable and consistent.) - Dank (push to talk) 04:22, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
          • I've made a proposal via an edit on how we could get rid of the last however, and I withdraw my oppose regardless of whether you feel my proposal is worth implementing. Thank you for your work on this very fine article and for using most of my suggestions. --MarchOrDie (talk) 12:45, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]


There may be a few more but these are the main ones that are leaping out at me. Nothing that can't be fixed. --MarchOrDie (talk) 21:18, 26 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your comments. Nick-D (talk) 07:18, 27 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sources and images - spotchecks not done

Comments. As always, feel free to revert my copyediting. Please check the edit summaries. - Dank (push to talk)

Support Comments -- Since I'm pretty familiar with this story and the sources Nick has used, I'm recusing myself from delegate duties in favour of a full-fledged review...

  • Over all this is in good shape, my only concerns are right at the top:
    • Infobox: Role is described as "fighter-bomber", which may be legit, but not once is this specialised term mentioned or cited in the main body. Either we need to mention/cite this as its prime role in the main body, or else use one of the terms that is mentioned/cited in the main body (ground attack, strike, whatever) here instead.
    • Lead: We need to clarify things for the uninitiated, and this relates to the role in the infobox. We don't actually define the Phantom's role in the RAAF in the first paragraph. We describe the aircraft as a fighter, which is generally correct, insofar as its main role with its home country goes, but misleading in relation to its RAAF service. We then say it was procured as a stop-gap for the F-111, whose role we don't mention either, even though we assert that the Phantom was successful in fulfilling whatever that role was... ;-) The solution may take less time than my definition of the problem, this for instance:

The Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) operated 24 McDonnell Douglas F-4E Phantom II aircraft in the ground attack role between 1970 and 1973. The Phantoms were leased from the United States Air Force (USAF) as an interim measure owing to delays in the delivery of the RAAF's 24 General Dynamics F-111C bombers. The F-4Es were considered successful in this role, but the government did not agree to a proposal from the RAAF to retain the aircraft after the F-111s entered service in 1973.

Changes made as suggested. Nick-D (talk) 06:14, 9 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Glancing over this FAC, I'm glad to see others also tackling the "however" proliferation on Wikipedia; I thought I'd park these here in the event they are helpful: [3] [4] SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:06, 17 December 2012 (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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