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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/USS West Bridge (ID-2888)/archive1

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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 SandyGeorgia 22:24, 6 June 2009 [1].

USS West Bridge (ID-2888)

[edit]
Nominator(s): Bellhalla (talk) 17:06, 12 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
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This is an article about a United States Navy cargo ship built during World War I that was torpedoed on its first voyage across the Atlantic in August 1918. The ship survived the attack (barely) and continued sailing until the mid 1960s. The article has passed a GA review and a Military History A-Class review. I offer my thanks in advance to those who take the time to review and comment on this nomination. — Bellhalla (talk) 17:06, 12 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment - File:USS West Bridge (ID-2888).jpg isn't a work of the US Government; it was taken by the ship's builder, J.F. Duthie & Company. Therefore, {{PD-USGov-Military-Navy}} doesn't apply. Is there any evidence the photo is in the public domain (i.e., published before 1923)? I believe (though may not be correct so a second opinion may be warranted) that copyright for "works for hire", under which this should fall, lasts for either 95 years from publication or, if unpublished, 125 years from the date of creation, whichever happens first. Since the photo was taken in 1918, the 125-year limit would be 2043. So unless proof can be found that this image is in the public domain, it needs to go. The other two photos look fine though. Parsecboy (talk) 02:25, 21 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • I will agree that it should not have been tagged with {{PD-USGov-Military-Navy}} since it seems to clearly not have been taken by the Navy. I'm not sure I buy the "work for hire" argument for this image, though. The caption on the image states, the photograph of the ship—built under government contract—was taken by "J.F. Duthie & Co., Seattle" on behalf of the "United States Shipping Board, E.F.C.". If it is a "work for hire", as you contend, the client would then be either the United States Shipping Board or its Emergency Fleet Corporation, both of which are units of the federal government, thus making the image in the public domain.
    • However, regardless of my lay-interpretation of the caption, the immediate source of this particular scan of the image is the Naval History & Heritage Command website (link) which states that the original came from the National Archives' Record Group 19-LCM. According the National Archives website, Record Goup 19-LCM is the series "Construction and Launching of Ships, compiled ca. 1930 - ca. 1955" (ARC ID: 512915), a part of Record Group 19: "Records of the Bureau of Ships, 1940 - 1966)" (ARC ID: 348). According to the website, the use restrictions for 19-LCM are listed as "unrestricted". (Can be verified by searching "512915" at http://research.archives.gov/search) — Bellhalla (talk) 17:28, 22 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • I guess that's fine then. I was just taking my understanding of the copyright laws and applying it to this photo. My reasoning was that since the photo was taken by an employee as J.F. Duthie & Co, as part of his or her official duties (i.e., his boss told him to take the picture), it qualifies as a "work for hire," and the business should legally retain the copyright, regardless of what they then did with the photo (except of course, if they released it to PD or it was published before 1923). Like I said, I'm no expert on copyright stuff, so I may be reading too much into this. Maybe it'd be best to leave it in for now until someone with more expertise can give us a better answer. Parsecboy (talk) 03:29, 23 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments
    • Some of the incomplete dates given make the article feel vague and make the chronology a bit difficult to follow. For example:
      1. In the last sentence of the Torpedo attack section - it should be made clear that "through 1 December" means 1 December 1919, given that the ship required seven months of repairs starting at the end of 1918. The lead is actually clearer on this than the main body of the article; giving the full date.
      2. The lead is again more informative as to the date of transfer of the ship to the USSR. The lead states May 1945 whereas the main article just says 1945.
    • The article is on a U.S. subject and uses U.S. sentence constructions but uses European day first date formatting.
    • Why are USMC, FESCO USSB and other abbreviations given in small caps? I can see that some of these are formatted using a template but there doesn't appear to be a requirement for this in the Manual of Style and it is inconsistent with other abbreviations - GRT, KW and DWT are not given in small caps.
      • An old American typesetting convention for small caps is to use them for acronyms or initialisms of four or more characters. You are right there is no requirement in the MOS for this, but, on the other hand, neither is there a prohibition. — Bellhalla (talk) 11:11, 27 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • You could link the NY Times article cited in ref 20 to this in the New Yorks archive.--DavidCane (talk) 01:21, 27 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The reason the date is in dd/mm/yyyy is because the US military uses that format, so the articles about the US military follow suit. Parsecboy (talk) 01:27, 27 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support, concerns addressed. --Laser brain (talk) 17:00, 5 June 2009 (UTC) Oppose for now, under 1b and MoS concerns, mainly. Bellhalla, you've spoiled us in the past with rich details of design and construction (remembering SS Kroonland now); is there really no more available? Details:[reply]
    • "After the ship was decommissioned from the Navy, she was restored to the name SS West Bridge" I don't follow. How was she restored to a name she already had?
    • I'm at odds with the explanation above about the USSB/NOTS templates and small caps. It may be an old typesetting standard, but that is no reason to use it in an electronic medium. To make matters worse, you have other acronyms in the article that are in standard caps. Please, it's extremely ungainly.
      • Many other FAs I have written (including SS Kroonland you mentioned above) use the same style for acronyms or initialisms longer than three characters and it's never been an issue before. Too many capital letters in a row can dominate a line of text and unnecessarily draw attention to a word or phrase so styled; this is the underlying reason that typing in ALL CAPS on the Internet is considered to be shouting by most folks. As an extreme example of how all caps text can dominate a reader's attention, take a look at this extreme example. (Personally, I think a lot of what's in that example is overly jargony and not suited for a general-interest encyclopedia, but that's another issue.) — Bellhalla (talk) 20:49, 4 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • The Design and construction section is oddly sparse. It's dominated by measurements and metric conversions that give it a clunky look and make me want to run away. Comprehensiveness is an issue. Where is the information about the design process? Why and how was it designed? Who designed it? How was it built? Very little information is here; the section might as well be named "Measurements".
      • I've reworked the section to provide some information on the ordering of the ship and tried to rearrange so as not to be jut a rehash of the infobox stats. I haven't found any sources that talk about how the design was developed; in my experience, those sorts of details are not usually preserved for cargo ships (as opposed to warships or large passenger vessels, like Kroonland). — Bellhalla (talk) 20:49, 4 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
--Laser brain (talk) 21:17, 2 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, Tony. — Bellhalla (talk) 21:45, 5 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No, there are a few more of them… :) — Bellhalla (talk) 21:45, 5 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. This is a clear, concise, and well-written article. It's understandable to someone with limited nautical knowledge, and the citations appear to be accurate and appropriate. I had a few comments and questions, but none detracted from my understanding of the subject. Good work! JKBrooks85 (talk) 05:40, 6 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Is there some kind of wikilink that would work for laid up? I know what it means, but it might be a bit of jargon for ESL speakers.
  • I personally don't think it's a big deal, but you might consider adding Croatia after Split in the lead. My FAC got dinged for not having country/province identifiers.
  • When was the WWI armament removed? I'd suggest adding the WWII Soviet-added armament to the general characteristics section.
  • Was any armament added by the USMC in WWII?
  • I turned on links in that first conversion template for long tons, since I didn't know what that was.
  • I'm not sure if things should be linked once in the lede, then again in the main body (West Coast of the United States, etc.)
  • One of the torpedo hits was near the No. 3 hold ... how many holds did the ship have?
  • You mention the survivors of the torpedo attack "situated themselves about ..."; were they in lifeboats or just adrift?
  • I'd suggest a trans-wiki link to "founder" in reference to the piece about the Montanan's end.
  • I assume this is the case, but is there some kind of nautical style that doesn't require "the" before the name of a ship?
  • Should convoy names be hyphenated? The WWI has a hyphen, but the WWII one was not.
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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