Talk:SS Fort Stikine

Reference cols

@Nikkimaria: - re your setting the colwidth to 30em. I specifically chose two cols for this article given the number of refs and that it looks much neater. 30em forces the references back to a single column on my screen (1280x1024px). It's a bit like ENGVAR, and I think that it should not be changed from one to another at an editors whim. Mjroots (talk) 21:00, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Hi Mjroots, what about using a different size that does produce two columns for you? As explained in the template documentation, the fixed number of columns approach is deprecated, as the colwidth option produces better results for more people. Nikkimaria (talk) 21:11, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

That means reducing by three sizes. Not an option. 21em is the largest that gives me 2 cols. Mjroots (talk) 21:39, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Not sure what you mean by "three sizes". 21em would be fine if you'd like to make that change, but I'm curious about what's going on with your setup to have that result - I still get two columns with only half my (laptop) screen, and three at fullscreen. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:50, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

CTRL & minus x3, that's what. Mjroots (talk) 06:39, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

GA Review

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

Reviewer: Jonas Vinther (talk · contribs) 12:46, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

• Well-written

a. the prose is clear and concise, it respects copyright laws, and the spelling and grammar are correct

b. It complies with the manual of style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation

Here is a list of sentence or grammar errors I discovered.

1. "Fort Stikinne had a short career. The ship was destroyed in an explosion at Bombay, India in April 1944" - This sentence should be changed to "Fort Stikinne had a short career; she was destroyed in an explosion at Bombay, India in April 1944" or something similar to that.

2. "which was built by the Dominion Engineering Works, Montreal, Quebec, Canada" - There is no need for the "the" addition in this sentence.

3. "The United Kingdom Official Number 168351 and Code Letters BKLG were allocated" - What this means is not very clear.

4. "Fort Stikine departed from New Westminster, British Columbia, Canada on 7 September 1942 and arrived at Vancouver the next day. She then sailed to Comox, British Columbia, arriving on 10 September. She sailed two days later for Victoria, British Columbia arriving on 13 September. Fort Stikine sailed that day for Los Angeles, California, United States, where she arrived on 23 September. She sailed five days later for Balboa, Panama, arriving on 10 October. After transiting the Panama Canal, Fort Stikine departed from Cristobal, Panama on 17 October with Convoy ZG8. It arrived at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba on 21 October" - What is the point in mentioning all these random voyages? It appears to be rather unimportant. Did something related to war happened or something else that is of value to the ships history? If so, that should be mentioned. Otherwise it seems be random and non-significant.

5. "Fort Stikine departed from Guantanamo Bay on 23 October as a member of Convoy GN 14. The unescorted convoy consisted 33 merchant ships; it arrived at New York on 30 October. She departed on 3 November with Convoy HX 214. The convoy arrived at Liverpool, Lancashire, United Kingdom on 14 December. She then sailed to the Clyde, arriving on 16 December" - Like stated above this appears to be somewhat unimportant and random.

6. "The convoy comprised 60 merchant ships escorted by a total of 22 warships over the duration of the convoy. The CAM ship Empire Darwin also provided some protection to the convoy" - Instead of writing "the convoy" three times consider re-writing this sentence because it's not well-written.

7. "Two merchant ships were lost to enemy action and another was damaged. The convoy arrived at Bône, Algeria on 8 January 1943" - In this sentence the article makes a battle reference and then does a u-turn and talks about an arrival at Bône, Algeria? If the Bône arrival was followed by the battle in question consider re-writing this so as to avoid confusion.

8. "It consisted 62 merchant ships, escorted by a total of nineteen warships over the duration of the convoy" - It appears the word "of" is missing in between "consisted" and "62".

9. "The unescorted convoy, comprising nineteen merchant ships" - So far this article has mentioned numbers over ten in numbers so that should be done in this sentence too.

10. "She then joined Convoy EN 246 which sailed the next day and arrived at Loch Ewe on 24 June. Fort Stikine joined Convoy ON 190, which had departed from Liverpool on 24 June" - Like so many other sentences in this article, this is very confusion, poorly reformulated, and comes off as unimportant.

11. The "History" section appears to just mention a bunch of random journeys and voyages that seemingly has no significant meaning to the ships history or World War II. The word "convoy" is mentioned 72 times in the same section! If all these convoy journeys is of significant meaning that should be detailed explained.

• Verifiable with no original research

a. It contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline

b. It provides in-line citations from reliable sources for direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged, and contentious material relating to living persons—science-based articles should follow the scientific citation guidelines c. It contains no original research

The bulk of the sources used in this article is online sources which appear to be unreliable, such as Convoyweb.com. The website encourages visitors to share their information on the site which gives the impression that it's more a forum or collection of individual information. Also references like this "THE EXPLOSIONS AT BOMBAY" The Times (London). Tuesday, 12 September 1944. (49556), col E, p. 3." is not acceptable without a template or link as it's hard to follow.

• Broad in its coverage

a. it addresses the main aspects of the topic

b. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail

The article, as repeatedly stated in the "Well-written" section, contains lots of unimportant, misleading, and confusion information, particularly all those convoy references. Also, why is it necessary to have a huge table that explains the destiny of all the other ships that was destroyed at Bombay in 1944?

• Neutral

It represents viewpoints fairly and without bias, giving due weight to each

The article is neutral and does not include personal opinions or statements.

• Stable

It does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute

The article does not change significantly from day to day and is not the subject of ongoing edit wars or content disputes.

• Illustrated

a. Images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid fair use rationales are provided for non-free content

b. Images are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions

The article is nicely illustrated with eleven images all of which is uploaded and from Commons and contains the required copyright/information text.

• Pass, fail, or hold?

This article still needs additional work. Per my points mentioned in the "Well-written", "Verifiable with no original research" and "Broad in its coverage" sections I'm going to fail it. Jonas Vinther (speak to me!) 14:07, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

@Jonas Vinther: Thank you for your review. It would have been nice to have at least had the chance to address or comment on some of the issues raised before the article was failed. I am well able to take on board point raised and respond, as you will see by talk:Hastings Line/GA1. I will be asking for a review, and would point out that Convoyweb is a very reliable site, based on the works of Don Kindell, an acknowledged expert on the convoys on WWII. There is also no requirement to provide a weblink for citations from The Times. It's online, yes, but by subscription only. I access it via Kent County Libraries. If I were to provide a url, it would be several hundred characters long, and only available to the very small number of Wikipedians in Kent (excepting those in Medway) with a library card. Not very useful at all. Those with access to The Times archive can easily verify the information via their method of access. WP:V requires that the information is verifiable. It does not require that you specifically are able to verify the information. Mjroots (talk) 16:50, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Mjroots, my main reason for failing the article was because of the points in the "Well-written" section. I considered putting it on hold, but believed there were too many errors in sentences or sections that made up the bulk of the information. If you feel failing the article was a mistake, feel free to ask for a new or second review. I would also like to participate in that review if that is wished. I'll retract my words about Convoyweb, but still stand by my review result. Jonas Vinther (speak to me!) 17:09, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

@Jonas Vinther: I know your a new reviewer, so you must understand Wikipedia policies rather than making assumptions. The Times ref is one of the BEST refs possible to include...a newspaper (I consider newspapers to be the best). They do not have to available online...in fact, any kind of ref doesn't need to be online...it just makes verifying the ref easier. @Mjroots: If the newspaper is available by subscription only, I would suggest you use the Subscription required template.--Dom497 (talk) 19:07, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

@Dom497: - thanks for those comments. AFAIK, logging in to the Times Online website would produce a different url depending on which County Library was used, and also different from logging in directly via The Times own website (which I can't do). For this reason, I don't provide urls for such newspapers. Where a newspaper archive is freely available, the I do provide urls. Mjroots (talk) 19:13, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

@Dom497:, I'm aware The Times is an excellent reference to make, but as I earlier today told Mjroots it was not my main reason for failing the article. Jonas Vinther (speak to me!) 19:31, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:SS Fort Stikine/GA2. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Auntieruth55 (talk · contribs) 19:41, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

Good Article review progress box

Criteria: 1a. prose () 1b. MoS () 2a. ref layout () 2b. cites WP:RS () 2c. no WP:OR () 2d. no WP:CV () 3a. broadness () 3b. focus () 4. neutral () 5. stable () 6a. free or tagged images () 6b. pics relevant () Note: this represents where the article stands relative to the Good Article criteria. Criteria marked are unassessed

This is actually a good article, no problems with it, at least not big ones... The picture of the fokke should be placed with the section of the article where it's relevant, but I see that you have a lot of photos, and that makes placement complicated. I've made some grammatical tweaks in the various paragraphs of the convoys, but this is all fairly complicated to-ing and fro-ing, and also fairly tedious. I'm wondering if much of that can be entered into a table, and you can use text for the section leading up to the cargo that exploded... See what you think, and ping me, then I'll come back and finish the review. auntieruth (talk) 19:41, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

@Auntieruth55: I will work on this over the weekend. Mjroots (talk) 17:29, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

@Auntieruth55: - I'm not in favour of putting the convoys into table format. We are fortunate to have the complete history of this vessel well documented, which I have presented as text in chronological order. The photo of the Focke-Wulf Condor should appear in its correct position. I do tend to have my browser set at a larger text size (125% I think), so maybe increasing the text size will work for you. Please continue with reviewing the elements of the GA and let me know if there are any issues arising. Mjroots (talk) 14:50, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

thanks. Happy to pass this! auntieruth (talk) 15:34, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

Ships lost or severely damaged

I think this entire section should be moved to Bombay Explosion (1944).--agr (talk) 11:07, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

@ArnoldReinhold: What would replace it if it were moved? That section illustrates the damage to shipping that was caused by the explosion. There's no harm in copying the table over to that article, which is somewhat lacking as to the loss of shipping. Mjroots (talk) 20:13, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

I don't think it is a good idea to have the table in two places as they could get out of sync if changes are made. Bombay Explosion (1944) should be the main article discussing the explosion. A paragraph here summarizing the damage to shipping would suffice.--agr (talk) 20:58, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

The Bombay Explosion article does discuss the explosion. This ship article discusses the ships. Which is how it should be IMHO. Mjroots (talk) 21:34, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

This article is about SS Fort Sticking, Bombay Explosion (1944) is about the disaster.--agr (talk) 19:04, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

@ArnoldReinhold: I've asked WP:SHIPS members for input. Mjroots (talk) 11:40, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

If you copied the table over, you could always have an edit notice on both pages, basically advising of the other table and to edit them in sync. Just a thought... - ^theWOLFchild 12:29, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

The table definitely belongs in Bombay Explosion (1944), indeed that article could be much improved by drawing further on the more detailed info about the explosion that has more recently been added here. On balance I agree with agr, I would not retain it in parallel here, but the last para of 'Loss' would benefit from some prose that can be drawn from the table. Davidships (talk) 15:18, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

I'd say the table belongs more in the Bombay Explosion article rather than this one. Also, if the decision is made to keep the table in this article, it seems rather odd to include Fort Stikine in it (and especially the description of the ship).

This is somewhat off topic, but I think the article is pretty heavy on images that are only tangentially related to the topic - yes, all those ships were escorts on convoys that included Fort Stikine, but images are not simply for decoration. A bunch of photos of generic convoy escorts add very little to understanding this vessel in particular. Parsecboy (talk) 16:52, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

@Parsecboy: - the images have been there since day 1, they meet the relevant GA criteria. Mjroots (talk) 17:25, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

Yes, they meet the GA criteria in that they are properly licensed and have correct captions - that is not the same thing as meriting being in the article. Parsecboy (talk) 17:42, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

Ships lost or severely damaged (revisited)

The March 2016 discussion was never resolved. (I am not surprised.) Simple stated this article is about SS Fort Stikine, not Bombay Explosion (1944). The casualties of the explosions are not important to this article, the fact that SS Fort Stikine was a casuality is. The entire section should be removed since it is in Bombay Explosion (1944). It is time consuming to keep duplicate info in sync. There is a mistake in the table, see if you can find it.

-- User-duck (talk) 23:55, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

Excort gallery

The March 2016 discussion mentioned, " … the article is pretty heavy on images that are only tangentially related to the topic … ".

The images of the escort vessels should be removed. Wikipedia:Image use policy states, "The purpose of an image is to increase readers' understanding of the article's subject matter, …". These images do not increase the understanding of SS Fort Stikine. I would not mind if they were not so intrusive. I changed the vertical alignment to horizontal using gallery but another editor did not like it. Wikipedia:Image use policy states, "Generally, a gallery should not be added so long as there is space for images to be effectively presented adjacent to text." (Emphasis added).

On my widescreen monitor:

• ZG 8 escort is 2 paragraphs away.
• HX 214 escort is 3 paragraphs away.
• MKS 6 escort is 5 paragraphs away.
• SL 129 escort is 7 paragraphs away.
• UGS 14 escort is 8 paragraphs away.
• GUS 25 escort is 9 paragraphs away.
• OS 69KM escort and Focke-Wulf Fw 200 Condor aircraft are adjacent to the "Ships lost or severely damaged" table.

True, the relative location is better on my old 1280x1024 monitor, but who uses them anymore.

PS: A gallery is a gallery whether it is vertical or horizonal, independent of the method used.

--User-duck (talk) 00:46, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

@User-duck: I'd very much like to keep the position of the images as they are. Firstly, they were in that position when the article was promoted to GA status, and secondly, they display fine for me as they are (HP Stream, Firefox set to 170%). WP:GALLERY discourages the use of galleries where avoidable. Mjroots (talk) 07:58, 6 August 2019 (UTC)