Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/USS New Ironsides

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The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Promoted -- Ian Rose (talk) 04:30, 26 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

USS New Ironsides[edit]

Nominator(s): Sturmvogel 66 (talk)


I am nominating this article for A-Class review because all the newer, bigger ships get all the love. I aim to remedy this in time for the 150th anniversary of the American Civil War. This article will make a run at FAC after this so suggestions for improving the writing, etc. would be appreciated.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 00:35, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Support per standard disclaimer. Another fine job. I prefer something like "when her crew finished gunnery training" (if that's what it was) to "as she was working up", but YMMV depending on the intended readership. - Dank (push to talk) 03:33, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comments This is a very good article, but I think it needs a bit more work to reach A class:

  • The lead could probably be expanded a bit to two paras
  • "The ship spent most of her career bombarding Confederate fortifications defending Charleston, South Carolina, and Wilmington, North Carolina, in 1863–65" - this suggests that she spent most of her time firing her guns, which obviously isn't right.
  • "The Union Navy ordered three substantially different ironclad ships in late 1861" - this is a bit confusing (I was wondering what they were "substantially different" to). I'd suggest tweaking this to something like "In late 1861 the Union Navy ordered three ironclads of greatly differing designs"
  • "The more conservative design" - what was this more conservative to, and why?
  • What role did Merrick & Sons play? - did they come up with the concept for the ship, or design her? (or both)
  • "but recent analysis" - it's best to specify the date as this won't be 'recent' forever (and the reference for it is to a 22 year old publication)
  • The role the ship was intended to fill should be specified in the design system - was she intended to be an oceangoing vessel, or an inshore vessel like the ironclads?
  • Can anything be said about the crew?
  • The contracting and subcontracting arrangement used to build the ship is described in both the 'Design and description' and 'Construction' sections and should be reduced to just a single mention Nick-D (talk) 10:23, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • I think that I've dealt with all of these, hopefully to your satisfaction.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 00:22, 13 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Support My comments have now been addressed. Nick-D (talk) 07:19, 19 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comments - not bad and nice to see some ironclads getting attention! - but some thoughts:

  • A bit more "why" in the design section would be a good thing (and probably necessary for FA) Why did the USN order 3 completely different designs of ironclad? Why did they chose one conservative design? Why was the armament changed mid-construction? What were the people who designed, built & commissioned here thinking?
    • How does it work now?
  • Ditto the service history: why was she ordered to do these things? What was her role?
    • Not sure how to respond here as her armor and relatively shallow-draft dictated that she'd be used against Confederate ironclads and fortifications as shown in the article. I'm not sure that I can find a citeable statement saying as much if that's what you're looking for.
  • Partial repetition between paras 1 and 3 of Armament section
    • Reworked.
  • Some low-value wikilinking e.g. waterline belt, Rear Admiral Goldborough.
    • As often as I've been accused on using unlinked jargon, I'm not really sure that there is really any such thing as low-value wikilinking, with the exception of dates.
  • Prose suffers a bit from longwinded and/or unclear sentences and misplaced commas: e.g. "A new iron carriage was built where the gun rode in a cradle that slid on iron rails that pivoted at the gun ports." or "With the completion of her overhaul in late August 1864, New Ironsides was recommissioned, but did not join the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron in Hampton Roads until October when her crew finished gunnery training. "
    • Reworked both of these, how do they read now?
  • biofouling -> fouling in every naval book I've ever read
    • Done.
  • Sourcing 1 - is any of this material DANFS? (It reads like DANFS!) If so a template ought to be added.
    • Nope, not even consulted.
  • Sourcing 2 - Inline cites are heavily reliant on one author. Don't think this is a problem for A-class but someone will raise it at FAC I'm sure.
    • There's not much published that I haven't tapped here, other than compilations on Civil War ironclads that merely duplicate material already provided.
  • Can we have some kind of reference for the statement about the current price.
    • Straight from the wiki template, whatever its source.
      • Should really be a reference in the article rather than requiring the reader to work out it's a template, find the template, and look at the template documentation...
  • Images. Currently there is only one. FAC will certainly ask for more.
    • One low-value image added. Can't really provide any fair-use images with a legal one already provided.

Only the top 3 or 4 of these are issues for me for A-class but hopefully all are helpful. The Land (talk) 21:45, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Thanks for the review.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 00:22, 13 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • No probs... have made a few further prose tweaks, happy to support now The Land (talk) 13:58, 19 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Comments:
    • ext links work (no action required);
    • images appear correctly licenced (no action required);
    • images lack alt text, you might consider adding it in (suggestion only);
    • there are two disambig links that need attention according to the tools: [1];
      • Done.
    • there is some inconsistency in the date format, for instance: "October 5, 1863" and "6 June 1864";
      • Good catch, fixed.
    • Note 1 probably needs a citation;
      • Footnote located, but I can't get it to display inside the inflation note without an error message. Perhaps one of y'all is more familiar with the intricacies and can figure out how to get it to work.
        • Hmm, I can see the issue, but I can't seem to fix it. Too technical for me, sorry. AustralianRupert (talk) 08:38, 20 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • in the References you have "Olmstead" but in the Footnotes "Olmsted". Please tweak so these are consistent;
      • Fixed
    • in the References Roberts 2002 appears, but doesn't appear to have been specifically cited. I suggest perhaps adding it to a Further reading section, or adding a citation to it. AustralianRupert (talk) 03:58, 19 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: You're inflating a capital expenditure item in terms of a CPI measure. You can't do this. You should inflate by either share of GDP if this was a megaproject, or GDP per capita if this was a standard Capital item. Given that the 1.5m authorisation amounts to 2.3% of the national debt of the day, I'd say treat the inflation as a megaproject and use relative share of GDP: http://www.measuringworth.com/uscompare/ . $780,000 US 1861 is, by relative share of GDP, equivalent to $2,390,000,000 US 2009 by calculation using Samuel H. Williamson (2010) "Seven Ways to Compute the Relative Value of a U.S. Dollar Amount, 1774 to present," MeasuringWorth. Fifelfoo (talk) 03:50, 22 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • OK, I've changed it to this measure. Still can't link to the external website from inside the note. But maybe somebody at FAC can figure out the issue.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 15:19, 22 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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