Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Peer review/William C. Rogers III

Improvements were made to the article in December 2006, I would like an article assessment and any notes to improve the article. Unfortunately I haven't found an image, but I think the basics of a biography are present. There is also a minor content issue involving the frequency of pipe bombings in San Diego in 1996, maybe someone could add their opinion on that issue as well. Thanks in advance for any comments. --Dual Freq 21:26, 19 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • I've fixed the citations as best I can, added some more biographical material and a couple of fairuse images, if there are anymore questions, I'd be happy to address them. Thanks. --Dual Freq 03:42, 6 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Let's see:

  • The main issue with the article, at this point, is that it's unacceptably terse. The primary reason why Rogers is known is the IR655 incident; the article only devotes two sentences to it. The main Iran Air Flight 655 article is meant to have more detail on the incident as a whole, of course; but it has, at the moment, more material on Rogers' role in it specifically, which isn't a good thing.
  • The prose is quite choppy, with numerous one-sentence paragraphs. The text should really be coalesced into meatier blocks.
  • The section headings should be in sentence case.

Other than that, this looks to have the basics down. As far as an image goes, is there an official one available from the Navy? Kirill Lokshin 22:54, 19 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for taking the time to review the article. I looked pretty hard through the DOD images site for an image, but I was unable to locate one. I suppose I could find his book and scan the dust cover photo, but I was trying to avoid fair use and hoping another editor might be able to locate one. The Iran Air section was removed from the article by another editor and pointed to the main article. I could try to re-add it, but I'm afraid it will revert back to it's previous condition describing the incident with quotes like:it "marked the horrifying climax to Captain Rogers' aggressiveness, first seen four weeks ago" I'll see if I can add a brief summary of the incident. --Dual Freq 23:58, 19 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It's actually a pretty interesting quote, but obviously needs to be given with more context. Mainly, the article should devote some more space to describing the controversy, particularly insofar as it touches on Rogers' own role in the incident. The question of whether Rogers' actions were appropriate is one that's been one of the focal points of the incident and its historiography; at the moment, the article doesn't really even indicate that his actions were controversial. Kirill Lokshin 00:09, 20 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I've added an overview of the downing incident, but I'm finding it difficult to summarize it in just a few paragraphs. Maybe you could skim through it once and let me know if it's overly POV one way or another. Also, I'm wondering about the need for the 1996 note that pipe bombs are a common occurrence as the bombing occurred in 1989. --Dual Freq 02:29, 20 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The overview looks pretty good, at least as far as I can tell. The length and depth is something to play with; the article is quite short, so there's no problem with adding more material, but we don't want to go off on too many tangents that aren't related to Rogers himself.
As far as the pipe bombs are concerned: unless there's some reason to believe that the statement was related in some way to the Rogers case, I wouldn't include it, as it seems too tenuous a connection otherwise. Kirill Lokshin 02:51, 20 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Another editor is rather insistent about keeping the 1996 pipe bomb statement, if I remove it again they will likely just re-add it. I think it's being used to refute Roger's book and the widespread assumptions from 1989 that the bombing was terrorism related as payback for the Iran Air downing. The source doesn't draw that conclusion and only mentions it as a notable bombing in San Diego's history so I wanted to remove it, but have been unable to. --Dual Freq 05:04, 20 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Early life and career prior to 1988" offers insufficient information for the first 50 years of his life. I think the section could be expanded and maybe split in two sections: 1) "Early life" and 2) "Career prior to 1988".
  • Some sentences in the same section look to me problematic: "He was commissioned December 1965, his first tour of duty was the aircraft carrier, USS Independence (CV-62)." "Captain Rogers married Sharon Rogers, also from Fort Worth, Texas, they had one son Will C. Rogers IV who was born around 1969." Maybe the punctuation is here the problem, but, in general, I think the prose of this section is a bit choppy.
  • "At the time, Vincennes was one of only five cruisers commissioned that carried the new Aegis weapons system and command of those cruisers was considered to be very prestigious." IMO you should devote a few more words to what is exactly "the new Aegis weapons system".
  • "Received with skepticism by some". "Some" who?! Too vague! CIte and explain, if there is available information.
  • "Storm Center: A Personal Account of Tragedy & Terrorism. Sharon Rogers, Will Rogers, Gene Gregston. Naval Institute Press, June 1992. ISBN 1-55750-727-9." When you cite a book, you should mention pages.
  • The formating of your online citations in not uniform. You can use Template:cite web and Template:cite news, sincr full citations are needed.--Yannismarou 15:53, 21 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for taking the time to review the article. Unfortunately, I don't have any further information at this time about Rogers first 50 years. Since he is only notable for a single incident there isn't much out there. I'm trying to get a hold of his book to see if it include more biographical details, but it's not available at my local library. I've remove the skeptics part since that is addressed in the following paragraph and the Iran Air 655 article. As for the Aegis bit, perhaps I assumed people would find the Aegis info from the linked pages, I've tried to summarize it. I suppose it deserves even more treatment since some of the blame for the Iran Air downing has been directed towards the system. I'll rework the citations as soon as I can. Thanks again. --Dual Freq 17:03, 21 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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