Talk:Amelia Earhart/GA1

GA Review

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch
I'll be reviewing this article for possible GA status. Cheers, Nikkimaria (talk) 16:49, 11 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm placing the article on hold to allow contributors time to address my concerns. Please feel free to ask questions here or on my talk page. Cheers, Nikkimaria (talk) 01:58, 12 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Since there's been no progress made on these issues, I'm going to decline to list the article at this time. Please feel free to work on addressing the below concerns and renominate at a later time. Cheers, Nikkimaria (talk) 20:08, 19 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Good choice. This article is still too long and poorly ordered. Moreover, see my addition in the talk area about disinformation and bias. Dan Knauss (talk) 22:42, 24 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Writing and formatting

This is an absolutely massive article, with over 104 kilobytes...bordering on too long. It would help to create one or more daughter articles, with a summary-style outline on this main page
Given the length of the article, the lead should have a minimum of 3 paragraphs; I would even go straight to 4 paragraphs.
Given that she wasn't declared dead until 1939, should she still be categorized under 1937 deaths?
Why is the father's nickname included in the infobox and not the mother's? Also, the father appears to have two different dates of birth
Why is the sister not listed under relatives?
"Amelia, nicknamed "Meeley" (sometimes "Millie") was the ringleader while younger sister (two years her junior), Grace Muriel Earhart (1899 – 1998), nicknamed "Pidge," acted the dutiful follower" - issues with grammar, repetition of information, and slight POV problem with "acted the dutiful follower"
The article could use a few more wikilinks
Some issues with encyclopedic tone, especially in the early sections
The article could use a general copy-edit, as there are many minor problems with grammar and clarity
"One look at the rickety old "flivver" was enough for Amelia (Millie)" - why is the nickname used here? The rest of the section refers only to Amelia
How is Amelia homeschooled by her mother if her mother lives elsewhere?
She visited her sister in Toronto and her sister lives in Massachusetts?
GP should be referred to as Putnam or George Putnam
Try to cut down on some of the run-on sentences
There are missing hyphens in places - look at WP:MoS for guidelines
"Spies for FDR" isn't the best choice for a section title
Records and achievements need convert templates
Combine all the schools into the single bullet in Other honors
Generally, only articles which are not linked to in the article text are included in See also
Very long quotes (such as in Search) should use the blockquote format

Accuracy and verifiability

Quotes should be cited immediately following the quote (no later than the end of the sentence)
Citations needed for:

wrote best-selling books about her flying experiences (specifically, the fact that they were best-selling)
Alfred Otis had not initially favored the marriage and was not satisfied with Edwin's progress as a lawyer.
Meanwhile their maternal grandmother disapproved of the "bloomers" worn by Amy's children and although Amelia liked the freedom they provided, she was aware other girls in the neighborhood did not wear them.
"belly-slamming"
there had been some missteps in his career up to that point
the Earhart children were enrolled in public school for the first time with Amelia entering the seventh grade at the age of 12 years.
While the family's finances seemingly improved with the acquisition of a new house and even the hiring of two servants, it soon became apparent Edwin was an alcoholic
he attempted to rehabilitate himself through treatment
fearing that Edwin's drinking would drain the funds
but these procedures were not successful and Earhart subsequently suffered from worsening headache attacks
After that 10-minute flight (that cost her father $10), she immediately became determined to learn to fly.
Six months later, Amelia purchased a second-hand bright yellow Kinner Airster biplane which she nicknamed "The Canary."
On October 22, 1922, Earhart flew the Airster to an altitude of 14,000 feet (4,300 m), setting a world record for female pilots.
Throughout this period, her grandmother's inheritance, which was now administered by her mother, was constantly depleted until it finally ran out following a disastrous investment in a failed gypsum mine. Consequently, with no immediate prospects for recouping her investment in flying, Earhart sold the "Canary" as well as a second Kinner and bought a yellow Kissel "Speedster" two-passenger automobile, which she named the "Yellow Peril." Simultaneously, Earhart experienced an exacerbation of her old sinus problem as her pain worsened and in early 1924, she was hospitalized for another sinus operation, which was again unsuccessful.
Amelia underwent another sinus procedure, this operation being more successful. After recuperation, she returned for several months to Columbia University but was forced to abandon her studies and any further plans for enrolling at the MIT because her mother could no longer afford the tuition fees and associated costs.
she flew out of Dennison Airport (later the Naval Air Station Squantum) in Quincy, Massachusetts and helped finance it.
Earhart maintained her interest in aviation, becoming a member of the American Aeronautical Society's Boston chapter, and was eventually elected its vice president
After Charles Lindbergh's solo flight across the Atlantic in 1927, Amy Phipps Guest, (1873-1959), expressed interest in being the first woman to fly (or be flown) across the Atlantic Ocean. After deciding the trip was too perilous for her to undertake, she offered to sponsor the project, suggesting they find "another girl with the right image." While at work one afternoon in April 1928, Earhart got a phone call from Capt. Hilton H. Railey, who asked her, "Would you like to fly the Atlantic?"
When the Stultz, Gordon and Earhart flight crew returned to the United States they were greeted with a ticker-tape parade in New York followed by a reception with President Calvin Coolidge at the White House.
Immediately after her return to the United States, she undertook an exhausting lecture tour (1928-29)
She ensured that the luggage met the demands of air travel; it is still being produced today.
In 1929, Earhart was among the first aviators to promote commercial air travel through the development of a passenger airline service; along with Charles Lindbergh, she represented Transcontinental Air Transport (TAT), and invested time and money in setting up the first regional shuttle service between New York and Washington, DC.
After substantial hesitation on her part, they married on February 7, 1931 in Putnam's mother's house in Noank, Connecticut. Earhart referred to her marriage as a "partnership" with "dual control."
Amelia's ideas on marriage were liberal for the time as she believed in equal responsibilities for both "breadwinners" and pointedly kept her own name rather than being referred to as Mrs. Putnam.
Amelia was especially fond of David
At the age of 34, on the morning of May 20, 1932 Earhart set off from Harbour Grace, Newfoundland with the latest copy of a local newspaper (the dated copy was intended to confirm the date of the flight).
She intended to fly to Paris in her single engine Lockheed Vega 5b to emulate Charles Lindbergh's solo flight
After a flight lasting 14 hours, 56 minutes during which she contended with strong northerly winds, icy conditions and mechanical problems
As the first woman to fly solo non-stop across the Atlantic, Earhart received the Distinguished Flying Cross from Congress, the Cross of Knight of the Legion of Honor from the French Government and the Gold Medal of the National Geographic Society from President Herbert Hoover.
That year, once more flying her faithful Vega which she had tagged "old Bessie, the fire horse," Earhart soloed from Los Angeles to Mexico City on April 19.
In July 1936, she took delivery of a Lockheed L-10E Electra financed by Purdue and started planning a round-the-world flight. Not the first to circle the globe, it would be the longest at 29,000 miles (47,000 km), following a grueling equatorial route. Although the Electra was publicized as a "flying laboratory," little useful science was planned and the flight seems to have been arranged around Earhart's intention to circumnavigate the globe along with gathering raw material and public attention for her next book. Her first choice as navigator was Captain Harry Manning, who had been the captain of the President Roosevelt, the ship that had brought Amelia back from Europe in 1928.
The original plans were for Noonan to navigate from Hawaii to Howland Island, a particularly difficult portion of the flight; then Manning would continue with Earhart to Australia and she would proceed on her own for the remainder of the project.
Due to lubrication and galling problems with the propeller hubs' variable pitch mechanisms, the aircraft needed servicing in Hawaii.
While the Electra was being repaired Earhart and Putnam secured additional funds and prepared for a second attempt. This time flying west to east, the second attempt began with an unpublicized flight from Oakland to Miami, Florida and after arriving there Earhart publicly announced her plans to circumnavigate the globe. The flight's opposite direction was partly the result of changes in global wind and weather patterns along the planned route since the earlier attempt.
They departed Miami on June 1 and after numerous stops in South America, Africa, the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia, arrived at Lae, New Guinea on June 29, 1937. At this stage about 22,000 miles (35,000 km) of the journey had been completed. The remaining 7,000 miles (11,000 km) would all be over the Pacific.
On July 2, 1937 (midnight GMT) Earhart and Noonan took off from Lae in the heavily loaded Electra.
Their intended destination was Howland Island, a flat sliver of land 6,500 ft (2,000 m) long and 1,600 ft (500 m) wide, 10 feet (3 m) high and 2,556 miles (4,113 km) away.
Their last known position report was near the Nukumanu Islands, about 800 miles (1,300 km) into the flight.

Remark : the exact sunset fix position was 847 miles off Lae in 043330 deg latitude, 27 mls off Nukumanu @ 071545 GAT. The fix is shown by graphical and numerical reconstruction in EJN, July 2008 , p.25 [see below in discussion page], matching the 071930 from aboard radio message to Lae.Desertfax (talk) 01:09, 12 November 2009 (UTC)desertfax. The 071930 GMT fix above also matches with exactness a recomputation by H.O.Publ.no.208 as used by Noonan.Desertfax (talk) 21:46, 22 November 2009 (UTC)desertfax[reply]

Some sources have noted Earhart's apparent lack of understanding of her Bendix direction finding loop antenna, which at the time was very new technology.
Motion picture evidence from Lae suggests that an antenna mounted underneath the fuselage may have been torn off from the fuel-heavy Electra during taxi or takeoff from Lae's turf runway, though no antenna was reported found at Lae. Don Dwiggins, in his biography of Paul Mantz (who assisted Earhart and Noonan in their flight planning), noted that the aviators had cut off their long-wire antenna, due to the annoyance of having to crank it back into the aircraft after each use.
Earhart's transmissions seemed to indicate she and Noonan believed they had reached Howland's charted position, which was incorrect by about five nautical miles (10 km). The Itasca used her oil-fired boilers to generate smoke for a period of time but the fliers apparently did not see it. The many scattered clouds in the area around Howland Island have also been cited as a problem: their dark shadows on the ocean surface may have been almost indistinguishable from the island's subdued and very flat profile.
The Itasca then searched the area to the immediate NE of the island, corresponding to the area, yet wider than the area searched to the NW
They also found that Gardner's shape and size as recorded on charts were wholly inaccurate
At $4 million, the air and sea search by the Navy and Coast Guard was the most costly and intensive in US history up to that time but search and rescue techniques during the era were rudimentary and some of the search was based on erroneous assumptions and flawed information.
Through his company Nauticos he extensively searched a 1,200-square-mile (3,100 km2) quadrant north and west of Howland Island during two deep-sea sonar expeditions (2002 and 2006, total cost $4.5 million) and found nothing.
For example, in 1940, Gerald Gallagher, a British colonial officer and licensed pilot, radioed his superiors to inform them that he had found a "skeleton... possibly that of a woman", along with an old-fashioned sextant box, under a tree on the island's southeast corner. He was ordered to send the remains to Fiji, where in 1941, British colonial authorities took detailed measurements of the bones and concluded they were from a stocky male. However, in 1998 an analysis of the measurement data by forensic anthropologists indicated the skeleton had belonged to a "tall white female of northern European ancestry." The bones themselves were misplaced in Fiji long ago.
Former U.S. Marine Robert Wallack claimed he and other soldiers opened a safe on Saipan and found Earhart's briefcase.
David Billings, an Australian aircraft engineer, has asserted a map marked with notations consistent with Earhart's engine model number and her airframe's construction number, has surfaced. It originates from a World War II Australian patrol stationed on New Britain Island off the coast of New Guinea and indicates a crash site 40 miles (64 km) southwest of Rabaul.
Her shyly charismatic appeal, independence, persistence, coolness under pressure, courage and goal-oriented career along with the circumstances of her disappearance at a young age have driven her lasting fame in popular culture. Hundreds of articles and scores of books have been written about her life which is often cited as a motivational tale, especially for girls
Any of her "Records and achievements" not specifically cited earlier
Compiled by her husband GP Putnam after she disappeared over the Pacific, many historians consider this book to be only partially Earhart's original work.
On the 30th anniversary of her disappearance, Pellegreno dropped a wreath in Earhart's honor over tiny Howland Island and returned to Oakland, completing the 28,000-mile (45,000 km) commemorative flight on July 7, 1967.
Finch touched down in 18 countries before finishing the trip two and a half months later when she arrived back at Oakland Airport on May 28, 1997.
has not been maintained and is crumbling
"Earhart Tree" on Banyan Drive in Hilo, Hawaii was planted by Amelia Earhart in 1935.
Stan Herd created the 1-acre (4,000 m2) landscape mural from permanent plantings and stone to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Earhart's birth
a corona on Venus was named by the (IAU).
"Amelia Earhart's Last Flight," by "Yodelling Cowboy" Red River Dave McEnery, is thought to be the first song ever performed on commercial television (at the 1939 World's Fair)
Possibly the first tribute album dedicated to the legend of Amelia Earhart
"Whatever happened to Amelia Earhart? Who holds the stars up in the sky?"
"one-in-a-million bad day."
"and Amelia's missing somewhere out at sea."
is now a sought-after collectible

The first direct quote in "Radio signals" doesn't match the source exactly - "have" should be omitted
Refs 7, 17, 79, 84, 85, 110, 133, 145, 159 are broken
All web references need date of retrieval (and author/publisher where available)
Earhart 1932 is in Notes but not in Bibliography
Ref 61 is a commercial site and thus is not a reliable source
Check for consistency in spelling and dating between Notes and Bibliography
Formatting problem with ref 103
Note which links require subscription or login
Refs 151 and 152 link to the same place despite having different titles
Blogs do not qualify as reliable sources
Refs 67 and 157 are the same
Briand is in Bibliography but not in Notes, as are Brink, Burke, Campbell, Cochran 1987, Loomis, either Morrisey, O'Leary, Pellegrino, Strippel 1972, Ware, or Wright. Might these go in Additional resources?
Bibliography is mostly alphabetized, but there are some out of order
External link 1 is broken

To quote one of the above odd statements: a wire antenna for radio reception or other feature below the aircraft's belly has never existed, let go having been lost at the Lae runway. The transmit-receive aerial was a doublet dipole extending from a pole on the cabin to both vertical tailplanes. A long wire reel aerial for conventional direction finding on low frequency channels had been left home, the crew having been imposed that high frequency DF [via an experimental ground station setup] would be sufficiently accurate [1]. That the crew, at least Earhart herself, was unexperienced with radio propagation theory finds proof where at sunset near the Nukumanu Islands, Amelia announces to shift to the "night" frequency [3105 kcs] from the daylight channel [6210 kcs], whereas at Lae airfield 800 miles behind there still was bright sunshine that quenched the 3105 kcs wave front as a result of which the Lae operator never heard her again. Desertfax (talk) 00:27, 6 November 2009 (UTC)desertfax[reply]

[1] There are sources questioning the up to 1967 thirty years classification of Earhart documents on the last flight.There is a possibility that the classification existed to avoid claims from Earhart relatives because an experimental high frequency DF installation had been advised to use by a technically inexperienced aircraft crew. Marginal DF exercition was the in last resort laesio enormis of the to Howland flight . Desertfax (talk) 22:40, 12 November 2009 (UTC)desertfax[reply]

Broad

Could still cut down on those popular culture bullets
Avoid repeating information
There's a bit too much detail in the sections on her early life, IMO

Neutrality

Multiple problems with WP:WTA, WP:Weasel, and some WP:Peacock - certain words introduce an editorial bias to the article and should be avoided
While the article text on the different theories surrounding her disappearance is mostly NPOV, the section titles, especially the later ones, are quite POV-ish

Stability

As with any major article, this is subject to a considerable amount of trolling and vandalism
I'm seeing some fairly recent content-based reversions. These should be kept to a minimum and discussed on the talk page as needed

Images

The source link for AmeliaEarnhardHoover.jpg is broken
P2270017.JPG is uncategorized
Earhart.electra.jpeg: how could a 1937 photo have been published prior to 1923? Ditto with Mantz, Ae,Manning, Noonan.jpg
EarhartBook.jpg: no fair-use rationale for this article, and images with the book cover tag are generally used only for articles about the book itself

As probably one of the original authors of the article, I am not particularly interested in a GA classification, however, some of the points made here are valid, although in the past history, many of the issues identified were hashed out. The reason for such a large 104 kb article stems from the "massive" set of references rather than primarily the text. An attempt to spawn off some of the article had been made and many of the related articles originated with this main article, however, there was a long-ago decision made to keep the main article intact. This could be revisited. As for the request for multiple citation references, that was undoubtedly considered previously and in many cases the passage containing pertinent information had an overriding reference source, as the entire article would have been bogged down by constant reference points. Adding another 70+ to an already long list of citations seems to defeat the purpose. I will give this article some consideration for a rewrite, but I would caution whether that will occur in a timely fashion. The reason it was never submitted originally for a GA review is that it is the target of constant vandalism and only remains stable due to a lengthy protection period assigned to it. FWiW Bzuk (talk) 13:42, 12 September 2009 (UTC).[reply]

IMHO, you should take a look at the article about the Supermarine Spitfire, it's almost as huge as this one. FWIW 98.234.126.251 (talk) 06:37, 17 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A lot of good suggestions. I'll try to do some editing with it soon. - Trevor MacInnis ^contribs 01:52, 20 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Another review

I just had a reasonable look through and made some notes that might help, excuse the bullet points:

At 106 kb length could it be split? A 'disappearance' article would seem logical.
Some of the left placed images are displacing the section header below, think there is a MOS gudeline on this.
Some more wikilinking could be useful: Semester, antibiotic, spinning and stenographer perhaps?
A couple of redirects that I saw, Spanish flu and Binney & Smith which redirects to Crayola which is linked just before and after.
Looks well referenced but there seem to be quite a few cites missing in 'Records and achievements,' 'Memorial flights' and 'pop culture'. Cite 160 is a bare link. I suspect that some of the web sources would not be deemed reliable at higher level scrutiny. Ref format needs tidying, some web sources have the domain name and retrieve date, others don't.
See also links - Many of these are in the text (it is a judgement call to repeat them), are they all relevant? List seems a bit long.
Is 'Additional resources' the same as the standard 'Further reading' header?
A minor style thing in places some words might be missing, 'became apparent that Edwin was an alcoholic'.
The {{Aviation lists}} navbox is missing.

Very well written, does not seem to be a link in the header to this review unless I missed it? Cheers Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 18:40, 30 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]