Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Montreal Laboratory/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 Ian Rose via FACBot (talk) 11:54, 10 December 2016 [1].

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Montreal Laboratory

Nominator(s): Hawkeye7 (talk) 11:59, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

Having written about the British and American components of the Manhattan Project, this article is about the Canadian part. Hawkeye7 (talk) 11:59, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

Support on prose per standard disclaimer. There have been no changes since I reviewed this for A-class. These are my edits. - Dank (push to talk) 12:14, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

Support I could not find various issues other than the lead's first paragraph being a bit small and three references used for "They were succeeded by George Weil in November 1945." Other than that, I hope this article becomes a FA. Also I've recently made my first FAC Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Allen Walker/archive1 and I would appreciate any feedback. Regards.Tintor2 (talk) 15:10, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

Comments

• Overall, a worthy candidate.
• Why are commonly known country-names ("Canada", "United Kingdom", "Switzerland", "Austria") linked? Why are three geographical names bunch-linked at the opening?
• Uncomfortable switch from "United Kingdom" to "Britain" in the opening sentence. Later, I see "England". Me, I'd be using "UK" and "US", but it's up to you.
• "The Maud Committee was uncertain as to whether this was relevant"—perhaps two words could be removed ... do you agree?
• "although there remained a possibility that a reactor could be used to breed plutonium, which might be used in one."—"could/might have been used"?
• "Due to American concerns about security (as many of the scientists were foreign nationals) and ..."—"as" is often a problem; I'd used "since", but here, why not just remove it altogether?
• "Director"—MOS, CMOS, and the Oxford NHR all say to minimise unnecessary caps.
• I guess two temporal vaguenesses are OK in the lead—"eventually" and "for a time"—presuming that they're clarified in the body of the article.
• "in order to"? Please.

I've read through just the lead and first section. Tony (talk) 03:19, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for your review Tony.

1. Someone keeps linking country names. Unlinked them, and I'll keep a watch to make sure they don't come back.
2. I have to use the future in the past tense about the plutonium. Today we know that you can breed plutonium in a reactor, and that it is fissile, and can be used in an atomic bomb. But back then neither was certain; the element had been theorised, but not yet discovered.
3. All my sources agree that NRX was the most powerful research reactor in the world when it was started in 1947. However, they don't say what replaced it. In Canada it was superseded by NRU, which started up in 1957. Hawkeye7 (talk) 10:43, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Comments by Mike Christie

Not much to complain about here, but I have a couple of minor quibbles.

• "For the purpose, he obtained 450 kilograms (990 lb) of uranium dioxide in paper bags obtained from": "obtained" twice.

  Deleted second "obtained" Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:36, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

• "notably proximity to materials such as heavy water": is "proximity" the right word here? I would have thought access, not proximity, would have been key.

  Changed "proximity" to "access" Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:36, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

• "Auger assumed the position instead": I assume this refers to the position offered Kowarski, but it's been several sentences so a more explicit reference would be helpful.

  Changed to "Auger became head of the experimental physics division instead" Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:36, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

• "He also tried to recruit Harry Thode": who is "He"? The referent appears to be Laurence and Mackenzie, in which case it should be "They".

  Done. Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:36, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

• "It established the Combined Policy Committee to control the Manhattan Project, on which Canada was represented by Howe": suggest "It established the Combined Policy Committee, on which Canada was represented by Howe, to control the Manhattan Project", assuming that's the intended meaning.

  Done. Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:36, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

• The appointment of Cockcroft as head of the AERE baffled me till I realized that it was a UK organization; most of the alphabet soup in the article refers to Canadian organizations. Can you make it clearer within the sentence that Cockcroft was being pulled from Canada? After the "Cockcroft did not depart" sentence I realized I must be missing something, and clicked through to the AERE article.

  Changed to: "the British government suddenly announced that Cockcroft had been appointed the head of the new Atomic Energy Research Establishment in Britain" Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:36, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

-- Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 20:03, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for your review. Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:36, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

Support. Looks in good shape to me. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 21:05, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

Coord note -- I think we still need image and source reviews if you could chase pls, Hawkeye. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 06:22, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

Note that the A Class Review included an image review. Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:05, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

Comments by Tintor2

The article seems to be ready to be promoted. However, one big issue I have is that huge caption in Establishment. Is it possible to make it shorter? I can't tell who is who especially because it lacks colors and the full size is not enough. Other than that, I think the first paragraph in the lead needs a bit more of expansion, but that's just nitpicking. I'll support it.Tintor2 (talk) 14:35, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

Colour film was very expensive in the 1940s. I've removed the long caption, and expanded the lead paragraph by two sentences. Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:03, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

Source review –

• The first external link showed up as dead on the link-checker, and a manual check confirms that it is a goner. This might be an active version of the page, but you would know more about that than me. All other links are in working order.

  Yes, that is the page. They moved it slightly. I preferred this version to others because it highlights the very minor differences between the U.S. and British versions of the document. Hawkeye7 (talk) 05:09, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

• Reference 2 needs a publisher listed (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, from the looks of it). All other references are well-formatted.

  Corrected. Hawkeye7 (talk) 05:09, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

• What makes Restricted Data (ref 13) a reliable source? At first glance, this looks like somebody's personal blog. Is Alex Wellerstein an expert in the field? That's probably what it would take for this source to be reliable.

  Yes, he is. He is an assistant professor at the Stevens Institute of Technology, and specialises in the Manhattan Project.[2] He also writes aboiut it for the New Yorker.[3] Hawkeye7 (talk) 05:09, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

The rest of the sources appear reliable enough to me. Giants2008 (Talk) 22:15, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for your review. Hawkeye7 (talk) 05:16, 9 December 2016 (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. Ian Rose (talk) 11:54, 10 December 2016 (UTC)

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