Talk:Muntz Jet

Muntz Jet has been listed as one of the Engineering and technology good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.
Review: October 4, 2019. (Reviewed version).

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A fact from Muntz Jet appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 7 October 2017 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that the Muntz Jet (pictured) was a car that came with the option of a liquor cabinet and ice chest under the rear seat armrests?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2017/October. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Muntz Jet.

Wikipedia

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Muntz Jet/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: RecycledPixels (talk · contribs) 22:55, 30 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I will be reviewing this article over the next day or so. RecycledPixels (talk) 22:55, 30 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Rate	Attribute	Review Comment
1. Well-written:
	1a. the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct.	The writing is reasonably easy to understand and I'm not seeing any spelling or grammar issues. It can use polishing in places. For one, I'd recommend cutting down the use of "Madman" when referring to Earl Muntz. It's fine to identify that as his nickname, but the cycling between using "Muntz" and '"Madman" Muntz' is abrupt and distracting. Reduce (or preferrably eliminate) one-sentence paragraphs in the article. Overall, it's not brilliant prose, but meets the GA standard of "clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience". Done I've removed all uses of "Madman" except in the lede and the first reference to him in the body of the article, in the "Background" section. I've also eliminated a couple one-sentence paragraphs and consolidated others. Michael Barera (talk) 00:15, 4 October 2019 (UTC)[reply] Looks good.
	1b. it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.	MOS:LAYOUT: § Paragraphs - "The number of single-sentence paragraphs should be minimized, since they can inhibit the flow of the text". MOS:WTW: § Unsupported attributions - "Claims about what people say, think, feel, or believe, and what has been shown, demonstrated, or proved should be clearly attributed." There are a fair number of such examples. "It is also considered to be an orphan car", "..it is believed that 198 Muntz Jets were built". MOS:WTW: § Synonyms for said - watch out for several instances of the word "claimed" within the article, which imply doubt. Done All single-sentence paragraphs either eliminated or consolidated. All uses of the word "claimed" clearly attributed to individual people and sourced. Given the nature of this car and its history, especially Muntz and his showmanship, I think it is important to qualify some of what he says with "claimed" instead of just taking it at face value. My use of "believed" was admittedly more problematic, so I've rewritten those. I think my use of "estimated" makes it clear that these numbers may not be precise. Michael Barera (talk) 00:15, 4 October 2019 (UTC)[reply] Looks good.
2. Verifiable with no original research:
	2a. it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline.	Extensive inline references are used and citation templates are used. Newspaper references need page numbers so readers who are not newspapers.com subscribers can find the article. I'm unfamiliar with the {{open access}} tag that is being used on the Newspapers.com references, but after following the link and reading the template description, I believe that tag is being used incorrectly in the newspapers.com references, since that site is a subscription-required site, not open access. I disagree with this assessment. Newspapers.com allows users, such as myself, to clip articles, create a permanent URL, and then allow anyone without an account to access those clippings. Everything that I've cited via Newspapers.com has links to these open-access clippings, which anyone reading the article can access without an account. Also, because these stories are easily accessible by anyone, I don't think the page numbers are necessary, similar to how contemporary online newspaper articles are linked. If you feel strongly about adding the page numbers, though, I will add them in. Michael Barera (talk) 00:15, 4 October 2019 (UTC)[reply] I wasn't aware that the clippings were accessible to everybody, not just subscribers, good to know. Are you aware if those clippings remain accessible, or only up until a certain number are accessed, then it will put up a paywall? I went into incognito mode and clicked away for a while on them, but I didn't encounter a limit. A few of your clippings (Los Angeles Times, 6 Nov 1984), (Daily Herald, 12 Mar 2000), and (Northwest Herald, 4 Jan 2013) only show the first part of the article, not where the article continues onto another page, unless I'm missing something somewhere. Because of that, I think page numbers should be added so if someone has access to that paper via another source (print, another online source, etc.) can find it. Since it's a simple edit, I went ahead and added the page numbers to the references. @RecycledPixels: I'm not positive, but I've used Newspapers.com extensively and I believe there is no limit to the number of views of clipped articles. I've never run into a limit or any other sort of barrier to accessing them when logged off. Regarding the continued articles, I clipped the continued portion and linked it to the word "continued" in the quotation field in the citation template. Admittedly this isn't a perfect solution, but it works, and I couldn't figure out a better way to do it. If you know of a superior way to link to these continuations of articles, please let me know and I'll happily make the change. Michael Barera (talk) 01:43, 5 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
	2b. reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose).	The Cars: 1895-1965 reference is self-published and is not a reliable source. The snippet of information that the source provides is so trivial and duplicated in the article's other references, so elimination of the source is either easily replaced with more reliable sources, or already cited to reliable sources. Done All uses of the Phillips reference removed and replaced. Michael Barera (talk) 00:15, 4 October 2019 (UTC)[reply] Looks good.
	2c. it contains no original research.	"An uncredited Reno Gazette-Journal news brief from 1956 claimed that the Jet had set a "sports car speed record" of 142 mph (229 km/h)." This is a pretty weak addition to the article. The cited newspaper article , one column wide and three quarters of a page long, on page 11 of a 20-page newspaper, describes a number of recent automobile accidents in the Reno, Nevada area. The article dedicates a single sentence, "The Muntz Jet, no longer a production car, once set a sports car speed record at 142 miles an hour" to the car's top speed, and also refers to the car as "plastic-bodied". I don't think this reference supports a claim or implication that the car was widely believed to have accomplished speeds in excess of 140 miles per hour, because, among other things, it's pretty clear that the newspaper's writer(s) didn't really know what they were talking about. Done That sentence and source has been removed. It was pretty clearly talking about the Kurtis Sport Car, but my explanation in the following sentence was probably WP:Original research, too. Michael Barera (talk) 00:15, 4 October 2019 (UTC)[reply] Looks good.
	2d. it contains no copyright violations or plagiarism.	I have not been able to identify any concerns with plagiarism or close paraphrasing.
3. Broad in its coverage:
	3a. it addresses the main aspects of the topic.	I had expected to see a bit more of a complete discussion of the vehicle's specifications, features, and so on, but looking at other GA-class articles I see that such information is not typically included or available. Still a potential area for expansion of information in the future. The content in the "Legacy" section of the article includes the information I would normally expect to see in a "reception" section, describing the reactions of the public to the product, and how it was perceived, major praise, criticisms, and so on. Covers the major points needed, but some more public reviews of the car during its time of production could be helpful to the article. On re-reading the article a few times, I see that a lot of the information that I was thinking of in the "specifications" category are included, they are just scattered around in different places. It could be tightened up and reorganized, but that's not really something that's part of the GA criteria beyond the requirement that the the writing is clear, concise, and understandable. Feel free to reorganize anything in this article as you see fit. I think the article probably won't get much more complete without a book being published on the car, so for now I don't think there is much I can do. I don't think this article could even get to FA status without more and better sources out there about it. Michael Barera (talk) 00:15, 4 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
	3b. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).	Article stays on the topic without going into unnecessary detail.
	4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.	I'm not getting any sense of advocacy, favoritism, or any non-neutral wording other than what I mentioned in the words to avoid above.
	5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.	Only ten edits in 2019, four of those from the nominator in August. No edit wars, article tags, or unresolved items of dispute on the article's talk page.
6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:
	6a. media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content.	Four images, all plausibly tagged as licensed under appropriate CC-BY or CC-SA-BY Creative Commons licenses.
	6b. media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.	Completely relevant to the article and with appropriate captions
	7. Overall assessment.	~~Not there yet. There are some easy items to fix, and some others that will take some effort.~~ Great work, interesting read. Thank you for your efforts on this article. Promoting.

Additional areas that can be improved, that are aside from the GA criteria:

Don't wikilink obvious terms, like Los Angeles, New York City, Chicago, dashboard, seat belt, acceleration, aluminum, sports car, and so on. It makes the article into a sea of blue.

Done I'm not the best when it comes to discriminating against more important articles when it comes to wikilinks. I've taken a wack at it, but please feel free to cut out more links if you feel it is necessary. Michael Barera (talk) 00:15, 4 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Once you've linked an item, you don't need to link to it every time you use it. Examples: Muntz Car Company, Kurtis Sport Car, Earl "Madman" Muntz

Done Nothing is linked more than once in the body of the article. Michael Barera (talk) 00:15, 4 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The article identifies the vehicle as a hardtop convertible, but the sources I was reviewing for this GA review seemed to identify the vehicle as having a removable hardtop. Not a convertible.

Per the Wikipedia article, isn't a detachable hardtop a type of convertible? Michael Barera (talk) 00:15, 4 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Apparently so. I was not aware of that. RecycledPixels (talk) 21:19, 4 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Sources I was was reading also stated that two different Lincoln engines were used, a flathead V8 and an OHV V8 engine.

I saw a debate in the comments of the Hemmings article over whether the Lincoln engine was a flathead or an OHV, but did you see something more authoritative? Unless we can prove that it was one, the other, or both, I'm just going to leave it as a "Lincoln V8" because that is what all the sources agree on. Michael Barera (talk) 00:15, 4 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I saw it at this link I believe. Northwest Herald (Woodstock, Illinois) 11 October 2002, page E2, plus some others. RecycledPixels (talk) 21:19, 4 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Overall, an interesting read about a car I had never heard of. I know the nominator is active on the site and is paying attention to this review, and I have a reasonable belief that the issues raised above can be resolved in a reasonable period of time, so I will place this review on hold for now. Note: I have this page on my watchlist, but I won't take any more action until you let me know here that you're ready for me to do another reading of the article. I've also been told that the table format for GA reviews that I prefer is a bit tricky to respond to; just add your comments and responses after mine, in either bold or italics, or create a responses section at the bottom, whichever you prefer. RecycledPixels (talk) 06:27, 1 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks so much for your time and effort, RecycledPixels! I think at this point I've addressed all of your comments and concerns. Thanks again for reviewing this article! Michael Barera (talk) 00:15, 4 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your hard work on the article. Promoting. RecycledPixels (talk) 21:19, 4 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you again for your time and effort reviewing this article, RecycledPixels! I really appreciate it. Happy editing! Michael Barera (talk) 01:43, 5 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Road-Jet

In at least one brochure the car is called the Road-Jet. Both contemporary and present day commetators also use that name. This can be seen in the image in the second row on the right with the single silouette illustration. https://classiccarcatalogue.com/MUNTZ_1950.html 2600:4040:5D30:4800:58A9:179A:5B93:AF7C (talk) 00:16, 28 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]