Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Halifax Explosion/archive1

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 by Graham Beards via FACBot (talk) 08:43, 1 August 2015 [1].

Halifax Explosion

Nominator(s): Resolute, Nikkimaria (talk) 02:32, 14 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The Halifax Explosion was the largest man-made explosion before the development of nuclear weapons. It was also a key moment in Canadian history, one that is still studied and commemorated to this day. This article has successfully undergone a MilHist A-class review. All comments welcome. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:32, 14 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Minor nits: This is a superb article. I found it completely engrossing, I just didn't want to stop reading it. It's laid out well, reading both logically and chronologically. The only thing I've seen so far... so was anyone ultimately charged for the collision? The article mentions some of the charges being thrown out, and an appeal, but there's no direct statement about the outcomes. Maury Markowitz (talk) 21:14, 14 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Charged yes, convicted no: only Wyatt's charge made it to trial, and "a jury acquitted him in a trial that lasted less than a day" per the Investigation section. Anything you might suggest to make this clearer? Nikkimaria (talk) 02:23, 15 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I added a statement noting that no party was ever convicted of a crime related to the disaster. Resolute 14:35, 15 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I guess my concern is the 2nd of the 3 paragraphs, the "correctly predicted" part. It is not clear what this is referring to, as there are several appeals? And why is this mentioned here at all? The appeals are mentioned later, and I think moving this part of the sentance out of here improves the entire para - it's sort of jarring now. Maury Markowitz (talk) 15:17, 24 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Gotcha. I'm inclined to agree. I've just removed that predicted part for now. Resolute 23:24, 24 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from SchroCat

Excellent article, and I'm leaning heavily to support. A few points to consider first:

Background

  • We have Royal Navy first then British Royal Navy second - perhaps move British to the first mention?
  • "the European theatre": perhaps add "of war" at the end, just for clarity?
  • "to reduce losses transporting goods and soldiers to Europe": to my mind "while transporting", but feel free to disagree

Explosion

  • "White-hot shards of iron rained down": I'm not sure "rained down" is encyclopaedic.
  • "The shock wave ... was felt as far away as..." The distances are probably understood by Canadians, but some numbers in km and mi would be useful for those of us ignorant of the geography!

Rescue efforts

  • FNs72–75 could be bundled here?

Destruction

  • "$545 million today": best to put a year date to anchor the inflation calculation.
I have RVed this change. The number in question changes as the data is updated, so someone reading this in 2017 will see the 2017 number, and putting "as of 2015" is decidedly incorrect. I suspect the source text was not examined? SchroCat, comment? Maury Markowitz (talk) 15:20, 24 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Investigation

  • "'street fighter' argumentation": I know exactly what you mean, but I think "street fighter" isn't encyclopaedic, and I'm not sure "argumentation" works, unless it's more common used in Canadian Eng. than I realised.

That's it from me – a fascinating read on a topic I was unaware of before. Cheers – SchroCat (talk) 14:13, 18 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hi SchroCat, thanks for your comments. I've addressed most of them. I'd prefer not to bundle the references, and I'd really like to keep that "street fighter" quote if possible. I've made a slight change to the wording there - does that work? Nikkimaria (talk) 16:39, 18 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Support – that looks good to me, and I'm happy to support now. Thanks for such an interesting read. - SchroCat (talk) 07:54, 19 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks to you for reviewing! Nikkimaria (talk) 17:32, 19 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Cwmhiraeth

An interesting article on a topic on which I previously knew nothing. A few points struck me:

  • "Halifax Harbour is one of the world's deepest natural harbours to remain ice-free most of the year." - This sentence jars because I would prefer "which remains", but apart from this, there are hundreds of ports and natural harbours around the world where ice is no problem so the statement is rather pointless.
  • "The two main points of departure were on the East Coast at Sydney in Cape Breton ..." - Could add Nova Scotia to clarify where this place is.
  • "... German submarines had resulted in a relaxing of regulations." - Perhaps "relaxation".
  • You mention that Francis Mackey was an experienced harbour pilot. Is anything known about the experience of William Hayes?
  • This came up at the GAN as well - the best we can do given the sources is "many years". Nikkimaria (talk) 12:25, 22 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The death toll could have been worse if not for the self-sacrifice" - I would suggest "had it not been for".
  • "They also played a role after the blast, with members arriving ..." - I would suggest that "members" is not an appropriate word here.
  • "... quickly led to rumours of a second explosion." - Perhaps "that a further explosion might follow" or somesuch.
  • "... continued working uninterrupted from the harbour." - Do you mean "at the harbour"?
  • "... pulling people from the harbour ..." - Do you mean "from the water"?
  • Not just that - there were people in the water but also in wrecked ships at the water's edge, collapsed buildings, etc. Nikkimaria (talk) 12:25, 22 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • "An estimated $C35 million in damages resulted ($545 million as of 2015)." - The phrase "in damages" is normally used to express a settlement awarded by a court.
  • I agree with Nikki. Certainly in Canadian media, "$x in damages" is extremely common when discussing disasters. I've used the same terminology in two other disaster articles I've helped write: 2011 Slave Lake wildfire and 2013 Alberta floods, and there are many historical news articles that use it for other incidents. Resolute 13:57, 22 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
It sounds odd to my British ears, but language changes over time and varies between countries, so I'm happy with your responses. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 16:39, 22 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Many people in Halifax at first believed the explosion to be a German attack." - I suggest you add "the result of" to this sentence.
    • Will continue later. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 11:10, 22 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The Halifax North Memorial Library was built beginning in 1964 to commemorate the victims of the explosion." - This sentence needs additional punctuation.
  • "MacLennan and MacNeil exploit ..." - This sentence is a bit convoluted and could be split.
    • The prose is of a high quality and I only found these two further minor points. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 11:06, 24 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • The end of the article seems a bit abrupt, leaving many unanswered questions. The war had another nine months to run. Were other parts of the port sufficiently undamaged to continue shipping supplies and men to Europe? What happened to all the shipping that had previously reported to Halifax before moving on to ports in the US? Where did convoys gather subsequently before crossing the Atlantic? Or do you think these points are beyond the scope of this article, which is specifically about the explosion? Cwmhiraeth (talk) 12:46, 24 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
      • The CBC's educational primer for it doesn't go into great detail, but it does make mention. (last couple paragraphs of page.) So I think this can be added. Unless Nikki beats me to it, I will see what else is available, as I imagine what you are looking for could be added as a paragraph in the Reconstruction section. Resolute 14:28, 24 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • The paragraph that has been added about the aftermath of the explosion is excellent; I think it is a considerable improvement to the article and I now Support this candidacy on the grounds of prose and comprehensiveness. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 05:14, 25 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thanks for your review! Nikkimaria (talk) 13:57, 25 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comment from Johnbod

  • Seems good, and more later, but it should mention Harold Gilman's large painting in Ottawa, which was commissioned as a memorial. Johnbod (talk) 02:53, 20 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Added, thanks. Nikkimaria (talk) 15:28, 20 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Support – Brilliant article, I enjoyed reading it. I couldn't really detect any problem. Burklemore1 (talk) 07:33, 24 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! Nikkimaria (talk) 13:57, 25 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comment—I probably won't have time to read the whole article, so I'll never get around to supporting (overall it looks good though). However, I do feel that the introductory sentence is rather insufficient in summing up what the article is about. That is to say, it only says when the Halifax Explosion occurred, not what it even is. Perhaps fitting in a brief "was a (maritime) disaster that occurred" in there will do the trick? The Wikipedian Penguin 21:02, 24 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Done this, thanks. Nikkimaria (talk) 13:57, 25 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Support - I read through top to bottom without stopping, found it a fascinating story, no prose glitches to make me stop, just really well done imo. Maybe I like explosions? Who knows. On the trivia side, I always wondered why Boston's Christmas trees came from there. Also, I looked at all the images: each is nicely and appropriately licensed (for a cheap & nasty IR). Well done! Victoria (tk) 20:43, 26 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Cheers! Nikkimaria (talk) 21:29, 26 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Support. A few quibbles:

  • Lead
    • Is it really helpful to link "fire"?
  • Disaster
    • See the MoS – we don't link the names of major geographic features and locations, which would include the Netherlands, New York and Belgium. (For my part, I don't think we want links to "blizzard" and "Christmas tree" later in the article, but I don't press the point.)
    • "She intended" – is it customary to attribute intentions to the ship itself rather than its owners/officers? (Question asked from pure ignorance.)
  • Collision and fire
    • "propellor" – perhaps a WP:ENGVAR thing, but the OED, Chambers Dictionary and Collins Dictionary all spell the word "propeller"
    • "Towing two scows" – a link to scow would be helpful here, I think.
  • Bibliography
    • Is having this header one level down from that of "Footnotes" intentional?
    • At FAC level perhaps we should comply with WP:ISBN and standardise on 13-digit ISBNs with hyphens. At present we have a mixture. WorldCat and the ISBN converter make this a simple job.

That's all from me. This impressive article meets all the FA criteria in my view. Tim riley talk 11:01, 30 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I delinked all those words, added the link to scow. It appears that "propellor" is a valid alternate spelling, albeit less used. On the "she intended" piece, it may be a bit of a colloquialism, but the phrase would be used to indicate a decision was made on ship, but we don't necessarily know by who. I'll try to come back to the ISBN bit, but the converter tool seems to be taking the existing ISBN13 numbers and converting back to 10 rather than give me the proper hyphen spaces - which to my understanding are essentially random anyway. Thanks for the feedback and support! Resolute 14:57, 30 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I've fixed the ISBNs. Tim riley talk 15:36, 30 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks Tim! Nikkimaria (talk) 16:45, 30 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Support -- recusing from coord duties, I copyedited/reviewed/supported at MilHist ACR and after checking changes made since then I see no reason not to support here.

  • Image review -- no new images since I checked licensing at ACR, and the one minor issue raised then was resolved.
  • Source review -- all footnote, bibliography, further reading and external links work; formatting generally looks fine and none of the sources appear problematic, but:
    • Per Tim, I'd have thought the Bibliography heading could go up a level.
    • You seem to eschew retrieval dates for web sources that have a publication date but compare FN93 with FN101 -- both Canadian Encyclopedia with publication dates but one has a retrieval date and the other doesn't. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 15:24, 30 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks Ian, I've fixed these. Nikkimaria (talk) 16:45, 30 July 2015 (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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