Wikipedia:Featured article review/Shuttle–Mir Program/archive1

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was kept by Raul654 17:11, 1 February 2010 [1].

Shuttle–Mir Program[edit]

Review commentary[edit]

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Notified: Wikipedia:WikiProject Human spaceflight

I wrote this article up to FA status some time ago, and am aware via my efforts at International Space Station that it probably doesn't meet the FA criteria any more. As a result, I'd like to get some input from the community as to what changes I need to perform in order to bring it back up to scratch. Many thanks, Colds7ream (talk) 19:42, 15 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Alt text done; thanks Its images need alt text, but you probably knew that already.... Eubulides (talk) 20:41, 15 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed. :-) Colds7ream (talk) 20:43, 15 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Right, that should be all the images alt texted. Colds7ream (talk) 16:00, 24 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There's a source reliability issue that needs to be resolved, and I think a few more references would be useful, particularly in the subsections under "Background". Also there appear to be two bare URL external links at the end of the references section, which should be correctly formatted, and either moved inline or to the External links section. Other than that, I think the article is still of a fairly good standard. --GW… 21:01, 15 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I'll have a hunt round and do some referencing. Incidentally, I've just dealt with the bare links in the References section - thanks for pointing them out. Colds7ream (talk) 21:21, 15 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Right, I looked into the dodgy sources and they were indeed somewhat dodgy, so I've removed the relevant paragraph. I've also begun work on the alt texts, if someone fancies checking my work so far, and as per a suggestion on the talk page, removed all the redlinks from the references. Colds7ream (talk) 17:21, 17 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I've begun some work on finding more references, and continue to add alt text to the images. Colds7ream (talk) 17:51, 21 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The source given for File:Shuttle-Mir Astronauts.jpg is spacefacts.de not NASA. It is watermarked by Spacefacts on their website [2], and Spacefacts say that they have been forced to watermark their photos "because several websites are using our portraits without asking for permission" [3].

Are the Russian logos on the navigation templates, e.g. File:Mir_insignia.svg, really free use? DrKiernan (talk) 14:52, 18 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I dealt with the portrait by selecting a NASA-based source, and applied the correct copyright tag to the insignia image. Colds7ream (talk) 17:04, 18 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well, folks, I think I've dealt with all these issues - anyone got any more concerns? Colds7ream (talk) 16:00, 24 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Thanks. In reviewing the alt text I noticed two instances of Image:Mir insignia.svg, obtained via templates, that did not render at all in the article, botching the display. The first, via Template:Mir modules, generates the HTML '<img alt="Mir insignia.svg" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d2/Mir_insignia.svg/120px-Mir_insignia.svg.png" width="120" height="79" />', but that image doesn't seem to exist on Wikimedia; when I try to retrieve it I get:
     HTTP/1.0 500 Internal Server Error
     Server: Sun-Java-System-Web-Server/7.0
     Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2009 19:37:08 GMT
     X-powered-by: PHP/5.2.8
     X-wikimedia-thumb: http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/thumb.php?f=Mir_insignia.svg&width=120
     Cache-Control: no-cache
     Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8
     Content-Length: 427
     Connection: close
The second, via Template:Manned Mir flight, renders the image to '<img alt="Mir insignia" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d2/Mir_insignia.svg/75px-Mir_insignia.svg.png" width="75" height="49" />', which has a similar problem. Assuming you can fix both images, please mark them with "|link=|alt=" as per WP:ALT #Purely decorative images. Eubulides (talk) 19:46, 24 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Done and done. :-) Colds7ream (talk) 19:54, 24 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, that was fast. Eubulides (talk) 20:39, 24 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary[edit]

Suggested criteria are lack of quality/formatting of referencing. Also note the recent changed to WP:WIAFA requiring "high-quality sources" YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 03:24, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, seems pretty good. Not sure how it would fare today at WP:FAC, but not really enough to delist. Cirt (talk) 21:14, 8 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, I'm happy with the changes made. Colds7ream (talk) 21:54, 8 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, the changes seem sufficient, per Cirt. -MBK004 05:19, 20 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove, most of the sources are by NASA, so most of the sourcing is primary/non-independent. Also, Encyc Astro is a home-made website. YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 04:31, 21 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove per YellowMonkey. This still has major issues with sourcing, and Encyc Astro seems unreliable. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • (Many otters • One bat • One hammer) 03:20, 29 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have removed the Encyclopedia Astronautica references, but fail to see why the accurate NASA sources present a problem. Colds7ream (talk) 07:56, 29 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Because there's so little that isn't sourced to NASA? Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • (Many otters • One bat • One hammer) 14:50, 29 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • And why is that an issue? The space agency that operated the programme is by definition going to be the best source of accurate information regarding any project - secondary sources regarding space operations are either completely incorrect (if written by non-space specialist journalists) or suffer from small errors that collect in writing up the info. All information written on the programme is based almost exclusively on NASA documentation, whether public or internal, so what's the point in using secondary sources for the sake of using secondary sources? Colds7ream (talk) 19:07, 29 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
They are not independent, and don't appear to have been peer reviewed YellowMonkey (bananabucket) (help the Invincibles Featured topic drive) 02:21, 6 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • This FARC has been going for over a month, and is 4-1 in favour of keeping - when can we expect it to close? If this were a FAC it would have been closed ages ago... Colds7ream (talk) 07:34, 6 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • FAR usually proceeds at a much slower pace than FAC ... hopefully YellowMonkey or Marksell will close this next week. Dabomb87 (talk) 15:10, 7 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Also, on another note, having the numbers doesn't mean that it will be kept, it isn't so much like AfD etc. FAC/FAR is less bound by that so people shouldn't assume that getting the numbers, even if no canvassing was used, is a guarantee of success. In this case I am completely sure that there wasn't any keep canvassing, so no worries there YellowMonkey (bananabucket) (help the Invincibles Featured topic drive) 03:26, 9 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • No. I am working from the bottom of the list, and just started on this one. I am finding many unaddressed issues, for example, mixing citation and cite templates, incorrect section headings so far. This isn't ready to close. Some of the declarations appear premature, or that the article hasn't received a review worthy of FAR. I'll get back to this one. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:05, 7 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Fixes needed. WP:MOS#Captions review for punctuation in image captions; mixes citation and cite templates (see WP:CITE); use of informal & in place of "and" (I corrected the faulty use of special characters in section headings, which others should have seen before, see WP:MSH); what is the story on the commented out text and why isn't it removed to article talk; do the citations at the end of "increments" cover the entire section; there are faulty endashes on date ranges, so a MOS review is needed (example: 1995 – 1997 should have no spaces since the date elements have no spaces, see Wp:MOSDATE); some measurements have conversions, others don't, they should all use the convert template; and more importantly, has anyone besides YM taken a serious look at whether the article overrelies on NASA sources? Will those declaring Keep please address the quality of the sourcing? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:21, 7 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Someone still needs to take an indepth look at the sourcing issues; I don't know when/if I'll have time for that, but, adding to his comments above, YM is under no obligation to close this quickly if there are still concerns. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:44, 9 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Remove unless the prose is cleaned up throughout. Here are examples from the top.

  • "experience into"?
  • Remove "respective"?
  • "the largest spacecraft ever flown at that time in history"—"ever to have been flown"
  • "allowing the construction of the ISS to proceed much more smoothly than would have been likely"—last bit is odd ... "than would otherwise have been the case"?
  • program, then programme.
  • Lots of clumsy "with + noun + -ing", and I mean lots. For example, "with only the base block of that station, DOS-8, having been constructed", and "With the fall of the Soviet Union ending the Cold War and Space Race, Freedom was nearly cancelled"—and is it US or British spelling? "cancelled/led". Tony (talk) 14:54, 16 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I must concur with Tony (but disagree with YM that NASA is not a good source per se; although overuse of a single source is an issue). Some more prose issues (just examples):

  • "Originating during the Cold War, the Shuttle–Mir program originated" - Suggest getting rid of one of the 'orginateds'. Rest of that sentence is awkward. Suggest breaking it in two.
  • "Similar difficulties were being faced by the U.S. and other nations with plans for space stations." Awkward and a bit wordy phrasing. Also sounds passive. Something like "Other nations had similar difficulties with their own space station plans."
  • "During the course of the program, 11 Space Shuttle missions flew to the station, carrying out crew exchanges, flying a docking module and a new set of solar arrays to Mir and conducting myriad scientific experiments aboard the space station." Monster snake of a sentence. Suggest breaking it up. Something like "Eleven Space Shuttle missions flew to the station during the program. These flights rotated crews and delivered a docking module and solar arrays." THEN say something about the scientific experiments (at least a paragraph). In fact, I think an entire section on those experiments is needed.
  • Text seems to be more wordy than it needs to be. Suggest taking User:Tony1/Redundancy exercises: removing fluff from your writing. See my rewrite suggestions above and this example from our moto: "Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge." -> "Imagine a world in which everybody can freely share in all knowledge." (just concentrate on the information in those two sentences) I'm sure my version can be improved further, but my point is that not as many words are needed. Always try to trim out unnecessary words.
  • Overuse of transitions make the prose sound old fashioned ('In addition", "therefore", "also"). Modern writing organizes text well-enough so that most transitions can be implied. Try rewriting some sentences w/o them. They are not always needed.

I stopped reading after the first section. Will read and comment more if that section is fixed. May even copyedit myself if I see enough effort in this direction. --mav (talk) 02:09, 19 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Status? No edits since November 7; is anyone still working on this article? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:24, 20 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I am, but awaiting the result of the RfC, which, given the comments made here, is clearly relevant. Colds7ream (talk) 12:45, 21 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've had a bash at cleaning up some of the first sections, what do people think? Colds7ream (talk) 16:08, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: still needs a substantial copyedit - all of nitpicky things I'm afraid. Duff punctuation, misrelated participles what! I'm a grammar school girl overlinking (words like spacecraft seem to be linked every time they turn up, not just once), inappropriate capping up. Silly annoying stuff. I'll go over it if you're OK with me doing it, or would you rather I listed everything? Elen of the Roads (talk) 23:36, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'd be genuinely thrilled if you wouldn't mind going for the Copyedit - had a lot of bad experiences lately with what I like to call 'drive-by commenting'. :-) Colds7ream (talk) 23:40, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
See what I can do tomorrow. It's beddy-byes time here Elen of the Roads (talk) 00:52, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, didn't get as far as I hoped due to dreadful lurgie. Still working on it. Could you explain the following three sentences, which follow each other across two paragraphs During the early 1980s, NASA had planned to launch a modular space station called Freedom as a counterpart to the Soviet Salyut and Mir space stations. Because of budget and design constraints, however, Freedom never progressed past mock-ups and minor component tests. With the fall of the Soviet Union ending the Cold War and Space Race, Freedom was nearly cancelled by the United States House of Representatives.

I can't work out whether Freedom was cancelled or not.Elen of the Roads (talk) 02:25, 6 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It became merged into the International Space Station, as the US Orbital Segment. Colds7ream (talk) 11:45, 6 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I took a crack at some of the copyediting, and will try to do some more tomorrow. I left off at the section "America arrives at Mir (1995)". UltraExactZZ Said ~ Did 21:49, 9 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Great copyedit work by others seemed to stall some weeks ago so I did a couple hours worth of my own. First half of the article was already in good shape, so my edits there were mostly minor. The second half had some really awkward phrasing and long and/or poorly constructed sentences. I tried to fix as much of that as I could. Lots of unnecessary words removed as well. Peacock terms and phrases toned down or removed. Redundancies removed including duplicate links. ===Attitudes=== subsection was toned down as well (read like an essay before). Still has too much, er, attitude for me but not enough for de-listing. Images also too big for my taste (I prefer to not hard-code width unless it is absolutely needed), but that is a personal preference. Overall, a keep for me now. --mav (please help review urgent FAC and FARs) 04:06, 8 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hold After review I found some further concerns against the FA Criteria:

  • Criteria 1C: Well-researched
    • Page numbers really need to be provided for all book citations, especially where multiple consecutive paragraphs are all being sourced to the same book (for example the first three paragraphs of the Background section). Another example is the first paragraph of the Mir section, where I would figure the claims mentioned would be on several different pages of the source book.
    • I added [citation needed] templates where I thought a citation was missing and needed, especially after entire unsourced paragraphs.
  • Criteria 4: Length
    • Section "Phases Two and Three: ISS (1998-2016) doesn't really seem relevant to the Shuttle-Mir Program, instead talking more about the building of the International Space Station.

Thanks for your attention. –Grondemar 20:39, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • OK, I've added in citations to the paragraphs you requested them for. I'm not entirely sure how you'd like me to number them, given that each book is used multiple times, though? As for the ISS section, its in there because its what directly followed Shuttle-Mir- the SMP was run purely as a warm-up to ISS, hence its relevance. Colds7ream (talk) 13:50, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • For any multi-page work used numerous times citing different pages: I put the reference detail in a ==Bibliography== section and use Harvard-style referencing inside the ref tags. See Mono-Inyo Craters for an example. --mav (Urgent FACs/FARs) 00:06, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thanks for adding the requested citations, I struck that concern above.
I modified the ISS section to remove the paragraph about the first module being launched and added a {{main}} hatnote to International Space Station. Let me know if you have any objections; if not, this would address my concern regarding relevancy.
I reviewed International Space Station; the difference between that article and this one is that the ISS article uses far fewer book sources and I only saw one book source in that article that didn't include a page number reference. You really need to include page number references in Shuttle-Mir, especially where multiple paragraphs are cited against the same source. –Grondemar 02:15, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep but can we cut "the Earth spinning serenely beneath them"? It seems rather overblown. The article uses both Progress and Progress, should it be italicized throughout? DrKiernan (talk) 15:56, 31 January 2010 (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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