Talk:Hard Rock (exercise)

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by BorgQueen (talk) 18:13, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

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• Comment or view
• Article history

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• ... that in 1982 Hard Rock might have "killed" 12.5 million people in the United Kingdom? Source: "Hard Rock's attack was much smaller, only 50 megatonnes. Even so, Scientists Against Nuclear Arms (SANA), which developed the CND's computer model, says this attack will kill 12 1/2 million people" from:New Scientist. Reed Business Information. 30 September 1982. p. 894.
  • ALT1: ... that in 1982 the British Hard Rock civil defence exercise was cancelled when twenty local authorities refused to participate? Source: "'Hard Rock' ... had to be cancelled when it became clear that twenty NFZ county councils were refusing to participate" from:Byrne, Paul (1988). The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Croom Helm. p. 165. ISBN 978-0-7099-3260-4.
  • Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Al-Adid
  • Comment: ALT0 a bit of an attempt at a quirky hook, killed in quotations as obviously it was only a forecast.

Moved to mainspace by Dumelow (talk). Self-nominated at 08:19, 21 February 2023 (UTC). Post-promotion hook changes for this nom will be logged at Template talk:Did you know nominations/Hard Rock (exercise); consider watching this nomination, if it is successful, until the hook appears on the Main Page.

• Comment: ALT0 seems very disingenuous, not just because nobody actually died (could would be better than might) but because the deaths were a projection based on the exercise, not deaths that would have been caused by the exercise had it gone ahead, which is how I read it initially. _MB190417_ (talk) 11:32, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

ALT1 checks out and appears in the article - I do not think it is terribly interesting but I may be wrong so approving it; the hook is cited. I was at first taken aback by the size of the map upon clicking the article. The article is both new enough and long enough. It has the correct inline citations and is neutral. The QPQ is done and the article appears to be free of copyright issues. I struck ALT0, approve ALT1. Bruxton (talk) 19:26, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

@Dumelow: I'm also concerned about the size of the map. I don't know what skin you're using, but in Vector 22 (which is currently the default for readers), the lead is compressed into a very narrow column of 3–5 words per line. You can see it through this link. MOS:IMAGESIZE says that even in exceptional circumstances, a lead image should not be more than 300px wide. I think it would be best to reduce the size of the map and suppress the label displays (with "label_size=0"), so that the labels will still show on mouse-over. Perhaps a list of targets could be included in the article as well. What do you think? Sojourner in the earth (talk) 20:25, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback Sojourner in the earth and Bruxton. I think the map is important as it demonstrates the unusual choice of targets for this exercise. I've moved it down to its own section so it doesn't squeeze any text. I can't reduce its size without losing the captions which I think are important in demonstrating how few major cities were targeted - Dumelow (talk) 07:53, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

Okay, that works for me. Thanks. Sojourner in the earth (talk) 15:30, 5 March 2023 (UTC)