Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Peer review/Battle of Hampton Roads

Battle of Hampton Roads

The article was formerly a Featured Article, but was busted in rank all the way down to Start Class last summer. The primary objection was a lack of citations. Because the Battle of Hampton Roads was more important than a mere Start class article would imply, I have tried to improve it, primarily by adding citations, but also by rewriting some parts, notably the lead. I have also moved the Order of Battle section to another article (Hampton Roads order of battle), and have simply removed some items of popular culture. In my own mind, it is now up to at least the minimal standards of B-class, but now seek comments from you, my dear colleagues. Obviously, I would like to get it up to GA or even A standards, and for this I welcome suggestions. PKKloeppel (talk) 17:41, 22 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

La Pianista

Interesting read, nicely organized layout. I have several prose concerns, however:

My main concern would be with uneven sentences. Some are almost arcanely long (When Mallory's men searched the South for factories that could build engines to drive the heavy ships that he wanted, they found that no place could do it immediately; at the best facility, the Tredegar works in Richmond, building engines from scratch would take at least a year.) and some are...not choppy, but relatively so. There is a difference between varying sentence structure and putting out uneven prose. This is perhaps the biggest prose-related issue with the article as is.

I have altered the sentence you cite, and have done my best with the rest. That is not to say that the text is now smooth; it only says you must now help me along.

I'm sorry to do this, but I don't think I can continue work on this article. I've been trying to work on some articles within my own WikiProject for the time being - apologies again. —La Pianista ^{Speak · Hear} 04:04, 26 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A secondary concern would be with some of the...winding, meandering text. "In marked contrast to his enthusiastic counterpart in Richmond, Federal Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles waited for Congress to meet until he asked them for permission that he did not need to consider building armored vessels." Why not write it as "In contrast to Mallory's actions, Federal Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles waited for Congress to meet until asking them for permission to not refrain from building armored vessels"? This is only one case out of the multitude, of course.

Same comment.

I would advise you to be careful with the use of commas - "Since then, using new technologies, hundreds of fragile artifacts, including the innovative turret and its two Dahlgren guns, an anchor, steam engine, and propeller, have been recovered and were carefully transported back to Hampton Roads to the Mariners' Museum in Newport News, Virginia" is a bit confusing and long-winded.

This sentence, too, has been revised.

The Battle of Hampton Roads, often referred to as the Battle of Monitor and Merrimack (or Merrimac), was certainly the most noted and arguably the most important naval battle of the American Civil War from the standpoint of the development of navies. Some of the adverbs here ("certainly" and "arguably") sound a little POV to me. Alternatives, or the removal of them, are welcome.

I have eliminated the word 'certainly,' but I think the word 'arguably' is appropriate; I put in in fact to avoid injecting a point of view. Some people do believe that Hampton Roads was the most important naval battle of the war, but at least two others would be nominated for the title by others: the Battle of Fort Henry and the Battle of Forts Jackson and St. Philip.

On that day, Virginia was able to sink frigate USS Cumberland by ramming; to force the surrender of Congress, which was then burned; and threaten to destroy her former sister Minnesota, which had run aground in maneuvering to get into the fight. I don't think this is accurate usage of semicolons; correct me if I'm wrong. A rewrite could be "On that day, Virginia was able to sink frigate USS Cumberland by ramming, force the surrender of Congress (which was then burned), and threaten to destroy her former sister Minnesota, which had run aground while maneuvering into battle."

I have learned that clauses containing punctuation are to be separated by semicolons, not commas.

Perhaps, but at times, the meaning would be more apparent with variety in punctuation. / La Pianista ^{Dolce, ma non troppo} 04:51, 25 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What do you think of the revision I have just put in? It avoids the whole problem of clauses and semicolons. PKKloeppel (talk) 23:03, 25 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The battle received worldwide attention, and had immediate effects on all navies. Sentences including a comma and a conjunction ("and," "but," "or," "so," etc.) should have a subject at the beginning of the latter half or else the comma should be removed. Put simply, would the latter half "Had immediate effects on all navies" stand on its own as a sentence? It would not – I recommend either using "The battle received worldwide attention and had immediate effects on all navies" or "The battle received worldwide attention, and it had immediate effects on all navies." (There are multiple sentences like this – I've given only one case. It's a minor problem by itself, but given multiple times, it can hurt an A- or even B-class nom.)

You are dead right on this one.

The commandant there, Captain Charles S. McCauley, though loyal to the Union, was paralyzed by advice he received from his subordinate officers, most of whom were in favor of secession. I'm not fond of colloquial exaggerations in any article, regardless of class. I'm sure he wasn't paralyzed in actuality. ;)

I have replaced 'paralyzed' by 'immobilized,' which is still rather colloquial, but I know of no other simple construction that describes McCauley's inactivity.

To make it even tighter, ... What is "it"? And what does "tighter" refer to? Clarification here, and elsewhere, would help.

Done.

In 1860, the French Navy commissioned La Gloire, the world's first. "First"...what? It's obvious you're referring to an ironclad, but a little word added to the end wouldn't hurt.

Likewise.

The use of armor remained controversial, however, and the United States Navy was generally reluctant to embrace the new technology. I'm no expert at MilHist, but I think you'll need a ref for that.

I have supplied a citation, but it is pretty weak, and I will try to find a better one.

On learning this, Williamson suggested taking the engines from the hulk of Merrimack, recently raised from the bed of the Elizabeth River. I would recommend a quick double-check of the prepositions used here. "Upon," instead of "on" would be better.

Done.

His colleagues promptly accepted his suggestion and went further: adapt the design of their projected ironclad to the hull. A few problems with this – the colon is out of place, and "went" basically adds nothing to the meaning. It's often the frequently-used words that are the most vague. Perhaps "His colleagues promptly accepted his suggestion and developed on it, adapting the design of their projected ironclad to the hull."

Rewritten.

The rest of the article consists of repetitions of the examples I have posted. And now that I have sufficiently outstayed my welcome as an annoying grammar nitpick (:D), I apologize for any mar in my work - it's past midnight, so naturally, I've perhaps missed a few proper italics above. —La Pianista ^(T•C) 07:21, 24 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your suggestions. I have placed my responses into your original message. By the way, what does (:D) mean? PKKloeppel (talk) 19:53, 24 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Just my emoticon in parenthesis. :) / La Pianista ^{Dolce, ma non troppo} 04:50, 25 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Magicpiano

Generally an interesting read. Just a few small comments. (Well, one might not be so small.)

If you really want to get it back to FA status, you should check the provenance of all of your images; ideally, they should also all have {{Information}} templates on the description page. (For example, it's possible that the map image, published in 1885, may have questions asked about it in FA review, since the death of its creator is not currently listed, and it is not clear that the copyright belongs to The Century. The Century magazine does appear in Google Books, so you may be able to figure this out. )
Passive voice and conditional future tenses would be good things to have avoided ( :) ). (For example: "Jones would prove to be no less aggressive" ==> "Jones proved to be no less aggressive")
"The three men, to be known as the Ironclad Board, were ..." It is the commission (or board) that is given the name.

-- Magic♪piano 12:54, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Your comments are well taken. I have corrected the two items in the prose that you pointed out. The map image was just misclassified as a work of art rather than a publication. As it was published before 1923, it is in the public domain, as was asserted. I have changed the permission labeling in Wikimedia Commons. (I also used the Information template, as you suggest.) Thanks for the advice. PKKloeppel (talk) 18:02, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

MBK004

If you want to take this to GA, I would encourage you to do so because the outside review from a non-military editor would be beneficial. Here are a few things that I saw during my look at this article:

There are still a few sections that lack any in-line citations and there are some spaces where the existing citations are a little sparse for my liking.
I have noticed some overlinking of terms more than one time.
You might want to implement {{USS}} for linking to US Navy ships ({{USS|Rhode Island|1860|6}} instead of [[USS Rhode Island (1860)|USS ''Rhode Island'']] as an example). (I have done a few)

-MBK₀₀₄ 03:45, 19 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the comments. (1) I had overlooked completely the lack of citations in the lead, and now have supplied them. (2) I hope I have removed all of the repeated links and have removed no important ones that were not repeated. (3) You blindsided me with the {{USS}} suggestion; I had never heard of it. It is a great idea. I will not revise the present article, on the "ain't broke" principle, but I will definitely use it in the future. PKKloeppel (talk) 02:40, 21 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I did not mean the lead, in fact you do not need to cite the lead per WP:LEADCITE. I was referring to another section. -MBK₀₀₄ 03:33, 21 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

OK. I believe that now every paragraph has either a citation or an external link to a relevant site. I will leave the references in the lead, as I interpret the WP:LEADCITE admonitions to be permissive and not compulsory. (If I am wrong, edit them out and accept my apologies.)

Note that I added a new subsection on command, after some internal debate. It gave me an excuse to use that sporty new {{USS}} template. I hope you will consider whether it is important enough to be kept in the article, or whether it would be regarded as padding. PKKloeppel (talk) 15:10, 21 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Brad101

The image File:CSS Virginia, wash drawing by Clary Ray (Photo - NH 57830).jpg needs its categories verified. Remove the tag if they're ok.
Your references need work; more specifically in this section there are no inline citations at all.
A lot of your paragraphs are lacking a trailing reference. For example in this section the last paragraph has no citation at the end.
There are far too many external links. The rule I use for external links is include them only if the link adds more information to the article that is not mentioned in the article, or cannot be included in the article, such as copyrighted photos. If the links lead to information that is already in the article remove them or use them as references. Links that are helpful to the reader are ones that lead to museums etc. --Brad (talk) 01:18, 23 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think that I have taken care of everything you pointed out. (1) The categories for the image have been made more precise (I believe that is what was asked for) and the tag removed. (2) The section without citations has been combined with a later section repeating the information, a section that does have the citations. (Why was this material repeated? I confess that my eyes glazed over when I read it for about the fifteenth time.) (3) A citation has been given for the statement you pointed to. In another case, a citation in the middle of a paragraph has been moved to the end, as the material comes from the same source. (4) I have culled the external links in the end section, retaining only those that say something relevant immediately — that is, no further navigation about the site. This still leaves a rather long list, which you may wish to cut. (If you do, please do not remove the final link, to the sonofthesouth site; it is one of my favorites.) PKKloeppel (talk) 22:56, 23 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The external links look much better now. In your references section you might think about using {{Cite book}} which would give everything a uniform appearance. --Brad (talk) 00:54, 25 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

{{cite book}} is done. PKKloeppel (talk) 13:10, 30 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

My thoughts are that you should place the article for a good article review. It's come a long way from where it was and thanks for you work! --Brad (talk) 01:32, 10 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]