Wikipedia:WikiProject Aviation/Peer review/Alaska Airlines

Alaska Airlines

I've listed this article for peer review because I have been making lots of improvements to this article and I eventually want to get this article up to Good Article and Featured Article status. I want all your suggestions on what could be improved, added, removed, etc. Anyone is welcome to comment, be it a comprehensive review of every last thing in this article (that would be MUCH appreciated) or just a short comment with a few comments and suggestions.

Thanks, Compdude123 (talk) 05:19, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

LeadSongDog

• The first thing I notice is that the article is very heavily dependent on material published by AA, which of course will not be NPOV. For a few simple statements of fact, this might be reasonable, but for an overall picture of the carrier it isn't. In cases where it is absolutely necessary, the citations should make it clear that they refer to official publications. Refs 67-73, for example, all seem to be based on press releases by AA or their supplier GoGo. Though in one case the Seattle Times adds the words "The airline said" to maintain a semblance of objective tone, that doesn't provide objectivity of wp:WEIGHT, even were we presupposing that the coverage is accurate. The article's scope should not be based on what the subject wishes to have widely known. For instance, it omits any mention of the concerns over the possible safety hazards of in-flight WiFi radio frequency interference that have been widely discussed. LeadSongDog come howl! 19:58, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Ok, I must say I have made only one edit to the section where those refs are used. (Most of my improvements have been to the history section.) I agree there needs to be more info from tertiary sources rather than primary and secondary sources, but I don't think that's a big deal. And adding info about radio-frequency interference with the Wifi might be seen by a GA/FA reviewer as irrelevant to this article, unless of course there is a specific incident with interference involving Alaska Air. Let me know if you have any other suggestions for this article. —Compdude¹²³ 17:19, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

RadioKAOS

• There were a few minor things I already mentioned on the talk page. Much of the historical details are lacking contemporary sources, which of course exist in abundance, as the company has been a frequent topic in numerous media outlets and other RSes for many, many years. Even print advertisements from the company would likely reveal information currently not found in the article, though once again you run into the primary/secondary sources debate. As I've mentioned at least a few times before, the prevailing methods of information gathering and content creation present an intriguing catch-22. Google won't give you the best information there is out there. On the other hand, while I won't try to speak for anyone else, I know I'm not getting a paycheck for doing any of this. If you're gonna spend the time to do real research, you would probably want to write something for profit, rather than write it on here for free, effectively letting other people get paid off of your work.
• A specific concern: Who's Who in Alaskan Politics lists one Marshall C. Hoppin, and states that Hoppin was the first regional administrator for the CAA for Alaska, and that he left the CAA in 1945 to become president of Alaska Airlines, and that he served in that position until 1957. Obviously, this is in conflict with not only the text of the article, but cited sources as well. Since Hoppin is not mentioned at all in the article, I was left wondering whether this was an error on the part of the book's authors or historical revisionism by omission. Then I found this. Now I'm not sure what to think. Kay Kennedy was someone who can be considered very credible and reliable as a source for aviation history (and honestly, I wish she was still around). Poking further, this states that Hoppin was president, but through 1947, not 1957. Back to the primary/secondary issue again, I don't know if this book was a "work for hire," or written and published independently.
• Summary version: If you missed mentioning a president of the company, then you've probably missed any number of other important details. I was supposed to have been out the door an hour ago, so I don't want to have to try and come up with a list.RadioKAOS (talk) 23:15, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Hmmmm, this is a pretty significant issue. This makes me question the reliability of the Funding Universe source I used to expand the history section almost a year ago. I used it because I didn't own any books about Alaska or Alaska Airlines and it was the only really comprehensive thing I could find on Google when I searched Alaska Airlines history (and the website I found was on page two!). Perhaps I would have had better luck searching Alaska Airlines 75th Anniversary, as that is the name of the ATW article I later found and added some of its info to the article. It is sure annoying when two sources contradict each other; you have no idea which one is correct or if they're both wrong. I will try and find more sources with Alaska Airlines history and compare them with the Funding universe one. Maybe that one book was wrong, I don't know. That's why it's important to have many different reliable sources for an article but that takes lots of time and effort to do, and I just wasn't willing to do that at the time (I was tired of looking at a history section that was 2-3 paragraphs long!). —Compdude¹²³ 20:13, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

About the whole presidents issue, I think that your book which listed Hoppin as president from 1945 to 1957 had a typo and that it was supposed to say 1947. Otherwise he would have been mentioned in that source I used. —Compdude¹²³ 05:42, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Actually, I realized that. I skimmed through that book I offered as a source. It appears to portray Hoppin as one of many figurehead presidents installed by Raymond Marshall during his tenure. The only other possible oversight in the article was the mention in the book of Warren N. Cuddy as the first of those. Cuddy may have perhaps been not that significant to Alaska Airlines, but he was an otherwise substantial figure in Alaskan history. This was mostly on account of his taking over the helm of First National Bank of Anchorage, which his family continues to run today, and for his involvement in Republican politics, which has been continued by his grandson.RadioKAOS (talk) 00:29, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

To quote some announcer I heard late one night on cable TV: "But wait, there's more!" I was perusing Character & Characters: The Spirit of Alaska Airlines by Robert J. Serling, which I don't see reflected as a source in the article at all. Another name not mentioned in the article, but extensively referenced in this book, was Bob Giersdorf. Joseph Robert "Bob" Giersdorf (1935-2003) was someone who is perhaps still fondly remembered by a few old-timers here in Fairbanks, but otherwise not well known today. He was vice-president of sales for the airline based in Fairbanks, leaving in 1972 to found his own tourism business, and described by Serling as a brilliant salesman/marketer. He may have also been closely affiliated with some of the Fairbanks-based tourism pioneers of the post-World War II era such as Paul Greimann, Brad Phillips and Chuck West. Giersdorf is perhaps best known for serving in the 1st Alaska State Legislature, which I believe was during his tenure with the airline. In either the end of 1959 or the beginning of 1960 (different sources give different dates), Governor William A. Egan erroneously appointed Giersdorf to the Alaska Senate some weeks shy of his 25th birthday (which is the minimum age established by the Alaska Constitution). He was forced to resign and return to his seat in the Alaska House of Representatives, and was renominated but not reelected in 1960. Serling doesn't definitively answer lingering questions about the Eskimo face logo, but he does appear a lot more certain that Giersdorf was one of the people responsible for the logo.RadioKAOS (talk) 04:55, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I think I should go thru that book and use it as a source in this article. I was reading it on Google Books and I got sucked in... :) —Compdude¹²³ 04:46, 19 April 2012 (UTC)