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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/USS Bridgeport (AD-10)

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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 00:47, 26 March 2008.

USS Bridgeport (AD-10)

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Self-nomination. I'm nominating this article for featured article because I believe it meets all the criteria of a Featured Article. The article has undergone a peer review at WP:MILHIST, a successful Good article nomination, and a successful A-class review (also at WP:MILHIST) — Bellhalla (talk) 22:06, 7 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments (Disclaimer: I participated in the peer review on this article.) I've given her another copyedit. Significant changes were adding endashes in date ranges and in routes (Bremen–Baltimore etc), and turning on links for the less common unit conversions (knot, hp) while turning off links for conversions in ft/m (only within the text, left them in the infobox). I also removed the hard spaces in dates; I don't know if someone suggested those to you, but they're absolutely not necessary in dates. A couple remaining issues:

  • I think you should pick either North German Lloyd or Norddeutscher Lloyd and stick with it throughout the infobox & article. No need to elaborate since you've linked to the wiki article.
  • The Immigrant Ship Info source doesn't meet WP:RS. While the website provides some sources for the information there, the info is already fourth-hand: some people wrote some books, some guy compiled a paragraph ostensibly based on those sources and emailed it to another guy, who posted it on the web. I note that one of your sources is one of those same sources; hopefully you can directly reference the Immigrant Ship Info footnotes to the Norddeutscher book.

Good work on this. I don't see any major hurdles aside from that one sourcing issue. Maralia (talk) 05:32, 9 March 2008 (UTC) Note for other reviewers who might notice one of the external links is down: history.navy.mil is the website run by the Naval Historical Center. Some of us from WP:SHIPS have been in contact with them about website outages over the last couple days; they are aware of the problem and working on it. This is an official website of the United States Navy, so I'm confident it will be available again shortly. Maralia (talk) 03:30, 12 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That website is now back online — Bellhalla (talk) 13:48, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I just left a note about DANFS sourcing in the talk page of the article. I wasn't able to find my way here, should have left it here. Can the generic DANFS disclaimer be dropped? doncram (talk) 04:15, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Even though paragraphs that are from DANFS are individually cited to the public domain source (and its named author), I feel that dropping the {{DANFS}} template would be intellectually dishonest. The individual footnotes do nothing to show that they are referencing public domain text. And, yes, while it would be simple to add something to the footnotes, current consensus on the incorporation of public domain text is to include notices such as this (a consensus of which you are aware through discussions you have participated in here, here and here). Also, on a practical level, keeping {{DANFS}} can help keep bots that search for copyright violations from flagging the article. — Bellhalla (talk) 12:56, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Actually i think now the problem is in the other direction. The article as presented does not adequately credit the DANFS text. When I asked the question, I had not analysed to what extent the article repeated the DANFS text. Reading the article I had assumed, incorrectly, based on your usage of the multiple footnotes to Cressman, that you had written material based on the Cressman/DANFS text and were being meticulous in providing where you got each fact that you wrote. I thought if that was the case, that the DANFS generic disclaimer would not be necessary, and that perhaps you only left it in an abundance of caution to give full credit where due. I was making incorrect assumptions about what would be done in developing this article to be a Featured Article candidate. In fact, I see that whole sentences, including ones with unusual phrasings, are unchanged from the DANFS text, starting in the World War I section of the article. For example:
  • "Bridgeport embarked a draft of 358 men for transportation to Charleston, South Carolina on 2 September and, after coaling, got underway on 4 September." in article, has wikilinks but is little changed from the DANFS text:
  • "Bridgeport embarked a draft of 358 men for transportation to Charleston, S.C., on 2 September and, after coaling, got underway on the 4th." in DANFS.
For another example:
  • "Late in the morning watch on 15 April, Bridgeport sailed for the Azores as part of a goodly company of ships." from the article, is identical, except for wikilinking, to:
  • "Late in the morning watch on 15 April, Bridgeport sailed for the Azores as part of a goodly company of ships." from DANFS.
Those two sentences leapt out for me, because of their non-standard phrasings. The phrase "as part of a goodly company of ships" should perhaps better be put it into quotes, for example, because it is a quaint, non-standard usage. And is it in fact ungrammatical to say "embarked a draft of 358 men", or is that just also quaint, non-standard usage?
Those are part of longer passages that are nearly identical, which are adapted only very lightly from the DANFS text, which is more idiosyncratic and dated, although nicely written in its quaint style, than I anticipated.
Given that, I think the small-font dot-point that is the DANFS template at the end of the references section is inadequate, that it is far too unobtrusive in the article to update the reader about whose writing appears here. I believe that the common reader would enjoy the article, find it well-written, and have the reasonable but incorrect expectation throughout that the article was written by wikipedia editors. Only a few readers would notice the unobtrusive template at the bottom, and be informed enough to do a double-take and realize that some/most?/all?/just-a-little? of the article was not the wording of wikipedia editors.
I am not saying something like the following would be the only solution/improvement possible, but perhaps advance notice, and more prominent notice, would be better. In USS Pampanito (SS-383), a section-leading template now states "This section adapts text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships article "Pampanito", available here" and is positioned at the beginning of the DANFS-adapted text. My creating and inserting that template has been discussed and criticized elsewhere, in part because some find the notice too obtrusive, but I believe it is at least better in calibrating the readers' expections with the extent of DANFS material use in the article. Sincerely, doncram (talk) 18:30, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Per the consensus, as I understand it, the notice appearing in {{DANFS}} is adequate. Your suggestions of needing to quote public domain text, and the rather vocal opposition to it (in my view) are under discussion here, and are better addressed there. I think the merits of this article as meeting or failing to meet Featured Article criteria should be addressed within the context of current consensus on handling public domain text.
Also, your mention of the approach at USS Pampanito (SS-383) is rather disingenuous, since you implemented that example, and per discussion here that particular approach was rejected by other editors. — Bellhalla (talk) 20:34, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I am not trying to be disingenuous. I prefaced my mention of Pampanito with acknowledgement that I created that template and that it had been discussed and criticized. If it helps, let me acknowledge that I am involved in discussions elsewhere, where the criteria for FAC would be relevant to mention. I came to FAC to examine any statements of criteria on referencing public domain text. I do not find such statements, but I do find this Ship article using DANFS text is a current candidate. The SHIPS practices for treatment of DANFS material have been brought up repeatedly by others, in discussions elsewhere, and it seems impossible to discuss what practices should be for other PD material, without discussing DANFS, so I want to get more informed about DANFS usage and in particular about its usage in Featured Articles. If there is a consensus in place that is expressed somewhere, I would like to be pointed to that. I agree that if there is a clear policy statement or consensus otherwise expressed somewhere and if a change proposal process exists, that then it is fair to direct me away to that, for any purpose of changing that policy. I think, however, that policy should be based on characteristics of PD text, and one policy will not properly fit all, and I don't know where the relevant policy statement is or should be. So I acknowledge am here fundamentally because what are practices here is relevant to informing a potential general policy proposal somewhere else. And also that I want to understand enough about differences between DANFS and some other PD text, to be able to defend my wish to use quotations of that other PD text. With all that, I grant you are entitled to suspect I have dirty hands in participating here. But again it is not obvious to me what are practices or consensus here, and I do not see clear FA criteria relating to referencing of PD text. There is no other good way to find out what the practices are here besides participating, and it feels appropriate and honest to me to question the referencing in this FA candidate article. I guess I want to ask you to set aside the discussions elsewhere, and to ask if we can just discuss this Bridgeport article and how it complies or not with Wikipedia guidelines that are relevant. Can you respond to the questions I ask about the Bridgeport article? doncram (talk) 21:45, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Consider the contrast between citation of copyrighted sources vs. citation of DANFS. Comparing the 15 citations of Dreschel to the 30 citations of Cressman, they look similar. Am I correct to assume that the Dreschel cites are for passages that are not copied, but rather that the passages are editor-written and the Dreschel cites provide justification for content, while the passages footnoted to Cressman are incorporated and only lightly adapted? The reader sees:
  1.  a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Drechsel, v. 1, p. 264.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad Cressman.
which is similar and
   * Cressman, Robert J. (6 December 2005). Bridgeport. Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. United States Navy. Retrieved on 17 January 2008.
   * Drechsel, Edwin (1994). Norddeutscher Lloyd, Bremen, 1857-1970: History, Fleet, Ship Mails. Vancouver, British Columbia: Cordillera Pub. Co.. ISBN 9781895590142. OCLC 303578
which is similar, and the only clue for an informed reader that the degree of reliance could be very different is the separated, small font
  This article includes text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships.
that appears further down. Can the degree of reliance upon actual wording of Cressman be communicated better somehow? I suppose that you could answer that you don't want to and that clearer differentiating is not consensus practice, but I am asking honestly. And is it correct for me to assume that long phrases, certainly anything as long as a sentence, from Dreschel, would be put in quotes? Sincerely, doncram (talk) 23:17, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Minor. A wording issue unrelated to DANFS--I misread at first the sentence "USAT Bridgeport was reconfigured to carry war brides and other military dependents at the Todd Shipyard in Hoboken, New Jersey" to suggest that the war brides were carried at the shipyard, like this was a residence ship at the shipyard. I would prefer changing the order in the sentence to, perhaps: "USAT Bridgeport was reconfigured at the Todd Shipyard in Hoboken, New Jersey to carry war brides and other military dependents. She made several voyages between England and the United States in this capacity, ..." doncram (talk) 23:17, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(Rule to separate my comments from the above blocks of text)

To answer your questions about this article (if I have missed any buried in the text above, please bring to my attention):

  • The question about whether or not something is, in your words, "quaint, non-standard usage" or not: I don't think it is, but if you do, you are free to edit it.
    • Thank you first of all for your complete reply. I believe you restated and addressed all of my questions. About whether various wordings are quaint or non-standard, I was sharing my opinion, a comment on the tone within the article. I appreciate that the same language may not rub other people the same way. Perhaps others could comment on the degree to which they find such wording is unusual or appropriate/inappropriate for wikipedia. Thank you for the invitation, but I won't step in to edit the article now. doncram (talk) 22:16, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • The question about whether or not the "quaint, non-standard usage" should be quoted: I do not, because it is public domain text that anyone is free to edit. If an editor, for example were to think that the phrase "part of a goodly company of ships" could be better expressed as "a whole shitload of ships", then that editor is free to change it. If, however, it were enclosed in quotation marks, the original text would, in effect, be locked in place, never able to be changed or improved whatsoever.
    • If a phrase is very non-standard, I think it is better writing to rewrite it into new words, or to put it into quotes. Quoting shows some distance from it and sets it off as recognized non-standard wording that was composed by someone else, not by the wikipedia editorship. Putting it into quotes does not at all prevent another editor from changing it. For example, if there is a phrase in the article "in a 'goodly company of ships'", an editor who didn't like the wording and doesn't deem the quote to be helpful could replace it by, say, "in a flotilla", and in doing so consciously remove the non-standard wording and the need to attribute the non-standard wording to somewhere else. doncram (talk) 22:16, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • The question of the character of the Drechsel cites: Yes, that is correct.
    • This question was about whether the Dreschel cites are for passages that are not paraphrased as the Cressman passages are. Thank you for clarifying (that the Dreschel passages are not paraphrases). doncram (talk) 23:22, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • The question of notice about the Cressman cites: That public domain text from the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships is incorporated is noted. That Cressman was the author of that particular material from the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships is noted. I think that each informs the other, so, no, I don't think that any further attribution is necessary.
    • Let me say, I did not at first appreciate the degree to which you were specifically identifying in the article where the incorporated text was. I understand now that you have gone to some length to identify each paragraph that includes incorporated or paraphrased text by a footnote to Cressman. This plus the DANFS disclaimer, which wikilinks to the actual DANFS text, represents a higher degree of attribution of DANFS material than is shown in many other Ship articles. I interpret that your treatment here represents a kind of "best practice", and I want to say for the record that I appreciate what you have done.
    • Still, I think that some improvement of the attribution would help. I expect that the average reader, or even a fairly interested one, would not understand the significance of the separated DANFS statement and put together the several elements here. I think the average reader would not end up understanding that the paragraphs ending with the Cressman quotes are largely or partially paraphrasings. I think some differentiation within the Cressman vs. Dreschell footnotes could be helpful in clarifying that. How about adding a sentence to the Cressman footnote such as "Paraphrasings from this public domain source are included"? That would put together more for the reader.

(For example if a student was quoting a phrase from a paragraph of the Wikipedia article as a source, that could give pretty clear warning that the student should also check the DANFS source before quoting. It could be even more helpful if the sentence was wikilinked to an article explaining a wikipedia-wide or Ships-article-specific practice of paraphrasing extensively from public domain materials generally or from encyclopedic sources like DANFS, but I am not prepared to create that article, and I am not suggesting it be done right now.)

  • The question about material from Drechsel being in quotes: To use Drechsel’s exact words, whether quoted or not, could potentially be a copyright violation. Given that I have not used any of Drechsel’s exact words, it is rather a moot point.
    • Yes, thank you for clarifying that. I think it could be helpful, also, to communicate a difference to the reader, that while you paraphrase from Cressman, you do not paraphrase from Dreschel. Expanding the Cressman footnote probably would accomplish that differentiation. doncram (talk) 23:22, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • In regard to your comment about the phrasing of one sentence: I you think another arrangement would express the intended meaning more clearly, you are free to edit it.

If you wish to continue discussing generalities related to public domain text, I'm willing to do so in other fora (though I'd rather be improving Wikipedia by working on other articles). Let's keep the discussion here related to whether or not this meets Featured Article criteria. — Bellhalla (talk) 00:47, 14 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have tried to stay focused in my comments here upon the referencing that appears in this article, and I hope you agree that I have. There are general criteria for Featured Articles about referencing, and some guidance in Citing Sources and in MOSQUOTE about use of quotations that does not specifically give specific guidance on what to do with public domain text. Your practice of including a footnote to Cressman at the end of each paragraph including paraphrasing, for example, is not specified in any of those sources. To suggest that you add a sentence to the Cressman footnote could possibly have implications on what best practice is, and eventually have implication in other featured article reviews, which would be fine in my view, if a better practice is in fact figured out. Anyhow I feel it is appropriate here, now, to focus upon the referencing and how it might be improved, or not, in this article. Again, I appreciate more, after further examination and your comments, how the referencing is more specific than I understood it to be earlier on. doncram (talk) 23:22, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support—Well-written. Pity there are so few sources. Do we need (Id No. 3009) again in the lead? Doesn't explain it, and you've announced the ID number already in the first sentence. Why are all the ship titles bolded? MOS breach.Tony (talk) 13:23, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
We commonly bold the first introduction of alternate ship names in the lead, presumably based on an (admittedly loose) interpretation of WP:LEAD's advice on bolding variants of the article topic. The sheer volume of alternate ship names often makes it impossible to list all the variants in the first sentence as we would with a person or a place. I personally don't like the appearance of bolding strewn throughout the lead, but I suppose it serves a purpose in clarifying to people who arrive via redirect that they are, in fact, at the right article. Maralia (talk) 22:55, 19 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The ships "commissioned as" name in the second paragraph is now de-bolded and the "Id. No. 3009" removed. That was an artifact from before the "ID-3009" was put in the initial sentence of the lead. — Bellhalla (talk) 12:38, 25 March 2008 (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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