Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Alan Shepard/archive1

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 Laser brain via FACBot (talk) 13:44, 31 March 2017 [1].

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Alan Shepard

Nominator(s): JustinTime55 and Hawkeye7 (talk) 00:13, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

This article is about Alan Shepard, the first American in space, and one of twelve men to walk on the moon. The article recently completed an A class review that included an image review. Hawkeye7 (talk) 00:13, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

Comments by Bruce1ee

An interesting read. Here are my first-pass comments:

Lead

• The 4th paragraph starts with "This was surgically corrected", which refers to his dizziness and nausea at the end the previous paragraph; shouldn't this topic be in one paragraph and not spread over two? These two paragraphs could be merged. MOS:LEAD says "As a general rule of thumb, a lead section should contain no more than four well-composed paragraphs ..." – the lead currently has 5.

  A good idea. I have merged the paragraphs. Hawkeye7 (talk) 02:27, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

Early life and education

• When did he attend school? No years are given.

  Not certain about his school years. I know he skipped the sixth and eight grades. He waa at Pinkerton from 1936 to 1940; added this. Hawkeye7 (talk) 02:27, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

• No reason is given for him skipping grades 6 and 8 at school (the source is offline, so I can't check it). Presumably it was because of his above average performance, but perhaps that should be stated.

  It says that he impressed his teachers. Hawkeye7 (talk) 02:27, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

• Should the second occurrence of "Louise Brewer" at end of the section not be "Brewer", or "Louise" as she is referred to later?

  Sure. Hawkeye7 (talk) 02:27, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

Navy service

• I take it events in the opening sentences took place in 1944. No year is given.

  August 1944. Added. Hawkeye7 (talk) 02:27, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

• "... calling Louise at 17:00" – is that each day?

  Yes, Added. Hawkeye7 (talk) 02:27, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

Project Gemini

• "Shepard was designated Chief of the Astronaut Office" – when did this happen?

  In November 1963. Added. Hawkeye7 (talk) 02:27, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

Apollo program

• No mention is made of Apollo 13's fate? Considering that Shepard nearly commanded it, perhaps a brief mention should be made.

  Added a bit. Hawkeye7 (talk) 02:27, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

  Thanks, that helps. Just one point: I take it "joje" means "joke". It seems to be a very obscure word to me, it's not defined in Dictionary.com and a Wikipedia search for articles using this word yielded only one – Alan Shepard. I'd suggest that it be changed. —Bruce1ee^talk 08:34, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

  Typo. j and k are adjacent on the keyboard. Hawkeye7 (talk) 09:13, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

  LOL, and there I was trying to look up to this "obscure" word! Actually, according to the Urban Dictionary, it is a word! [2] —Bruce1ee^talk 07:58, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

  It is, and it fooled the automated spell checker that I rely on to correct my awful typing as I write. Hawkeye7 (talk) 09:32, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

In media

• The format of the first entry is different to the rest. How about this: "1965 British science-fiction TV series Thunderbirds – character of Alan Tracy is named after him"

  Corrected. Hawkeye7 (talk) 02:27, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

  All that's changed is the source, not the formatting. —Bruce1ee^talk 08:34, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

  Oh. I thought you meant the reference format. Changed. Hawkeye7 (talk) 09:13, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

• These entries also need sourcing. Nikkimaria (talk) 22:19, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

  Added. Hawkeye7 (talk) 02:27, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

I've done some minor edits here, but feel free to revert. That's all for now – I'll have a more detailed look later. —Bruce1ee^talk 14:34, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for your edits. Just one more thing:

• Ref.# 115 (H.R.4517) has a dead link. —Bruce1ee^talk 07:58, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

  That would be right. Restored from archive. Hawkeye7 (talk) 09:32, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

  Support the prose and MOS. Thanks for all your work on the article, it's looking good. —Bruce1ee^talk 09:56, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

Image review

• Captions that are complete sentences should end in periods
• File:Alan-shepard.jpg: source link is dead, and could we have a better description than "none"?

  I can fix the description. The image is part of a series that includes this image. I have located several; there should be at least a dozen. But I cannot find it on NASA's site. Hawkeye7 (talk) 02:27, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

  We could switch to this image Hawkeye7 (talk) 02:34, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

• File:Mr-3-patch-small.gif and File:Apollo_14-insignia.png: the tag indicates that insignia use is restricted - how does that impact our use?

  The image is in the public domain. Assuming that they qualify as NASA logos, there are some restrictions on use. It doesn't impact us. Hawkeye7 (talk) 02:27, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

• File:Alan_Shepard_statue.jpg: bit confused here - the FUR states that the sculptor has given permission to use the image for any purpose, and record of same has been filed with OTRS...so if that's the case, why is this still non-free? Nikkimaria (talk) 22:19, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

  Too complicated for me. Maybe @Bubba73: can explain. Hawkeye7 (talk) 02:27, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

  • I've done it, but the file is still only on my computer. It looks a lot better than the low-contrast one, but the low-contrast one may be more historic. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 02:37, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

John

• What does "Status Deceased" add? --John (talk) 17:10, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

  It conforms to the consensus at template:Infobox astronaut and makes all the astronaut infoboxes consistent. It was added to the infobox in 2007. You changed the status code from "deceased" to "dead" in the documentation (but not the example) per WP:EUPHEMISM in 2014. Another editor opined in 2015 that "dead" doesn't add much, and should be discouraged, but the documentation didn't change. I have removed the status card; but the discussion really belongs over there. Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:34, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

  Huh, I'd forgotten that. You mean there are loads of articles on dead astronauts with a template helpfully adding that as well as being dead they are also "deceased"? Gosh. Consistency isn't always a good thing! --John (talk) 22:10, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

Comment

• The following sentence under Mercury Seven is unclear: "Since this [32 qualified candidates] was more than expected, NASA decided not to bother with the remaining candidates, selecting six astronauts instead of the twelve originally planned." Huh?? Why did they decide to select fewer astronauts, when they had a higher than expected qualification rate? JustinTime55 (talk) 21:10, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

  Replaced the second clause with these two explanatory sentences: The degree of interest also indicated that far fewer would drop out during training than anticipated, which would result in training astronauts who would not be required to fly Project Mercury missions. It was therefore decided to cut the number of astronauts selected to just six. Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:58, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Support on prose per my standard disclaimer. These are my edits. - Dank (push to talk) 23:30, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Comments: I've read to the end of naval service and done some minor, very revertible copy-edits. Just a couple of queries so far, more to come. Sarastro1 (talk) 23:33, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

• I'm not convinced we need as much about his family, particularly his father, as we get.
• The paragraph on Fighter Squadron 193 cuts rather abruptly away from Shepard, and the relevance is not obvious for a sentence or three. Can we make this a little smoother? Sarastro1 (talk) 23:33, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

  Sure. I have re-worded it to start with Shepard. Hawkeye7 (talk) 11:58, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Leaning Support: This is a rather marvellous article and brings the Shepard alive rather nicely. Just a few nit-picks. The only reason I'm not (yet) supporting outright is that I think the article needs a touch more context, as detailed below. Nothing major, just a sentence here and there to aid the reader. But great work in any case. Sarastro1 (talk) 23:35, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

• "That evening, Shepard discussed the day's events with fellow naval aviators Jim Lovell, Pete Conrad and Wally Schirra.": It would be nice for a sentence to say who these people were to stop readers clicking away from the article.

  I said that they were fellow naval aviators. Added "all of whom would eventually become astronauts". So sad that their names are not household words Hawkeye7 (talk) 03:23, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

• I think the article would benefit from a little background on the space race: not much, just a few sentences to put all this in context. Similarly, I've a pretty good idea what Mercury Seven was, but a brief introduction to it and its intention would benefit the reader who doesn't want to follow links. I think it is better if a FA is self-contained in this way, and it wouldn't take much writing. For example, we say "James E. Webb announced that Mercury had accomplished all its goals and no more missions would be flown", but we don't really indicate what its goals were.

  I have written a paragraph on the Space Race. Hawkeye7 (talk) 03:23, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

• Similarly, a little more on Gagarin; my understanding is that it was ridiculously close as to who would get into space first, and that there was a lot of disappointment at NASA. Could we reflect this briefly?

  Added a couple of sentences. Hawkeye7 (talk) 03:23, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

• Ditto what Project Gemini was.

  Added a sentence on what Project Gemini was. Hawkeye7 (talk) 03:23, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

• "There was no known cure, but in about 20 percent of cases the condition went away by itself.": Is this still the case? Judging by his surgical cure, it is not so maybe "There was then no known cure..."

  As of June 2016 it is. It is just that the article is written in the past tense. Hawkeye7 (talk) 03:23, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

• I'm not a fan of the "Awards and Honours" section, as it looks a distant cousin of "In popular culture" sections, but that is just my opinion, is not based on FA criteria, and can be thoroughly ignored and even dismissively waved away.

  Sure, we can do that. Hawkeye7 (talk) 03:23, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

• We mention his "philandering" but don't really discuss his marriage after its beginning. Did his wife find out? Do we know anything else about their marriage? How long did he carry on ... er... carrying on?

  Sure. Added a paragraph at the start of "Later life" Hawkeye7 (talk) 03:23, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

Sarastro1 (talk) 23:35, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Support: Happy to switch to full support now. Sarastro1 (talk) 22:40, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

Comments by Finetooth

Support on prose

• Leaning support for this excellent article. I made a small number of minor edits, which you are welcome to revert if you find them wrong-headed. I have two remaining nitpicks, as follows, both in the Project Gemini: Chief astronaut section:

• "An X-ray found a lump on his thyroid, and on January 17, 1964, surgeons at Hermann Hospital removed 20 percent of it." − Accidental ambiguity. This might mean 20 percent of the thyroid or 20 percent of the lump. I assume it means 20 percent of the thyroid, but it would be good to clarify in the text.

  Yes, it was 20 per cent of his thyroid. Clarified. Hawkeye7 (talk) 05:05, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

• "This included monitoring the development and implementation of effective training programs to assure the flight readiness of personnel for crew assignments on manned space flights, and furnishing pilot evaluations applicable to the design, construction, and operations of spacecraft systems and related equipment. He also provided qualitative scientific and engineering observations to facilitate overall mission planning, formulation of feasible operational procedures, and selection and conduct of specific experiments for each flight." − This is the one place in the article where the jargon bothered me. Could this be compressed or rewritten in plainer English? Finetooth (talk) 02:41, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

  Done. Hawkeye7 (talk) 05:05, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

Thank you. It now reads smoothly. Happy to support on prose. Finetooth (talk) 16:20, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

Drive-by comment by Ian

I was planning to perform a full copyedit and review but time's been against me and it seems to have attracted a good deal of commentary anyway. One thing absent that I thought you might consider including is Tom Wolfe's view of Shepard's personality, a duality Wolfe characterised as "Smilin' Al" vs. the "Icy Commander". It might fit nicely around the "mood of the day" bit -- I can supply a ref to my copy of The Right Stuff if needed. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 00:14, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

Added. Hawkeye7 (talk) 01:36, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

Tks -- I think the quote you added from Wolfe will make clear to the uninitiated exactly what he was talking about.

One other thing that caught my eye on a quick read-through, re. Moon Shot "generated some controversy for use of a staged photo purportedly showing Shepard hitting a golf ball on the Moon"... The cited source draws attention to the photo being composited but doesn't seem to mention a "controversy" over it, unless I missed something. Also I think that in mentioning this you should add that the composite was created because there was only video footage of the actual shots, else it reads to me as though there's a question as to whether he really hit those golf balls at all. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 05:26, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

Added a bit. Hawkeye7 (talk) 08:38, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

Tks, that's great; the only thing is I still don't see where the source clearly supports the idea that the compositing "generated controversy" -- to me it seems like a fairly matter-of-fact discussion of how and why the composite photo was created. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 15:02, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

Deleted that claim. Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:54, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

I don't think I can support without going through the article word-by-word and I don't want to hold things up while I try and find time for that -- based on the resolution of all my concerns here and in the source review, plus the depth of commentary by other reviewers, I certainly have no objection to promotion. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 10:32, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Source review

• Do we have a location for Shayler?

  London. Added. Hawkeye7 (talk) 23:29, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

• Sources otherwise accurately formatted.
• Ref 4 is to an email on Rootsweb, and the correspondent is not sure that Shepard is defended from Richard Warren, nor does she seem particularly authoritative. As the information is already cited to a book, why are we using this source, which can hardly be a RS?

  Already have one, so removed. Hawkeye7 (talk) 23:29, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

• What makes Spaceflight 101 a reliable source?

  Replaced with newspaper source. Hawkeye7 (talk) 23:29, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

• We have " This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration." at the bottom of the article. Can I check, what material does this refer to in the article?

  Yes, using Earwig's Copyvio Detector Hawkeye7 (talk) 23:29, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

No other issues that I spotted. Sarastro1 (talk) 22:34, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

Hi guys, I took some notes for a source review a little while ago but have only now found time to write them up here...

• I had the same thought as Sarastro re. Rootsweb, so glad the other ref suffices.

  Removed. Hawkeye7 (talk) 01:33, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

• Page number formatting in the citations all looks fine and the links are all live.
• Typo: "UNited States Navy".

  Corrected. Hawkeye7 (talk) 01:33, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

• Book refs use both "NASA" and the full name, perhaps go for one or the other.

  Standised. Hawkeye7 (talk) 01:33, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

• FN136 just seems to take us to a picture -- is the path accurate?

  Yes. Hawkeye7 (talk) 01:33, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

  Um, so we're using a picture of the lettuce on his chest to cite awards and honours? I would've thought we could do better than that, and if not we could just drop the pretty pictures and leave mention/referencing of his major awards to elsewhere in the article... Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 08:38, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

  All the uncommon awards are already in the article. I felt that the picture was more definitive about the common ones. I've removed the section. Hawkeye7 (talk) 10:25, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

• You spell out a state like Ohio but not Utah or Colorado -- again should be consistent and I think best spell out for the non-US reader.

  Corrected. Hawkeye7 (talk) 01:33, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

• FN138 could probably be formatted with a template for consistency with others.

  It is using {{imdb character}} Hawkeye7 (talk) 01:33, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 00:46, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

• One other query from me regarding the PD material, and it does not affect this source review, more simple curiosity. Is there any reason why we didn't paraphrase that source? I know this is perfectly acceptable, within the rules, etc, but it just strikes me as odd that this couldn't be rephrased. It is only a few phrases, after all. But no matter, and it doesn't affect any of my review. Sarastro1 (talk) 22:11, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

  Done. It has an Earwig score of 42.9%, which is almost entirely composed of proper nouns. Hawkeye7 (talk) 01:39, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

• Closing note: This candidate has been promoted, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FAC/ar, and leave the {{featured article candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. --Laser brain (talk) 13:44, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.