Wikipedia:Featured article review/RMS Titanic/archive1

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was removed 08:15, 9 July 2007.

RMS Titanic

Review commentary

Messages left at User talk:JustPhil, Belfast, Disaster Management, Shipwrecks, Irish Maritime and Ships. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:38, 5 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This may have been of featured quality at the time of its promotion (July 2005), but it is no more. Issues:

Missing citations: Most sections are either entirely without inline citations or have insufficient citations.

Incomplete citations: Both inline citations and general references (Notes and References, respectively) are often incomplete per MOS. I refer both to the numbered external links, and to the references without any publication information.

Irrelevance: Name change is a sub-section of Long-term implications. This is neither long-term nor does it appear to have any relevance to the topic. In any case, it is a one-sentence section. Use of SOS is also in the the wrong place.

POV Statements include, among many others:

"common rooms were considered to be as opulent as those in the first-class sections" from Unsurpassed luxury, which is an entirely POV section anyway.
"Regardless, the disaster ranks as one of the worst peacetime maritime disasters in history and by far the most infamous" from Disaster
"it was believed that the Titanic had sunk intact" from The break up
"This became the accepted way the ship had sunk" accepted by whom?
"No single aspect of the Titanic disaster has provoked more outrage than the fact that the ship did not carry enough lifeboats" Outrage from whom? Penguins?
"the most notable being Lifeboat #1"

Lead: The introduction does not introduce material that is covered later in the article. It presents information that is otherwise not mentioned. The lead is also too long.

Short Paragraphs: There are several 1-2 sentence paragraphs.

--Cryptic C62 · Talk 18:46, 27 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ignoring the other concerns you present, I don't find your indications of POV problems very compelling. For instance, in your third example you would need to show that it was not generally believed that the Titanic sunk intact (or at least indicate that this might be doubtful). Otherwise the sentence is just a statement of fact like any other. There's nothing in your nomination, or on the talk page that I can find, which explains what significant views are not being fairly represented in the article. Christopher Parham (talk) 22:19, 27 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The problem with the third example is not that only one viewpoint is being presented. It may very well be that everyone believed the Titanic sunk intact. It doesn't specify who believed this, nor is there sufficient context. Is it talking about the people who were investigating the accident? Is it talking about the people who built the boat? Is it talking about just British people? Much of the article seems riddled with weasel phrases and nonspecific wording. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 15:59, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Obviously only one viewpoint is being presented. By only presenting that view the article implies that effectively everyone in a position to study the problem believed it. If there was indeed only one viewpoint in reality, then the article is (perhaps) simply lacking a citation. If there were other viewpoints of any significance, then there would be an NPOV issue with the article, but you haven't shown that any such viewpoints existed. Christopher Parham (talk) 16:35, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"the article implies that effectively everyone in a position to study the problem believed it." Perhaps the article shouldn't imply this and should actually specify the groups of people involved, yes? Yes, definitely. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 16:55, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Quite possibly not -- if indeed this belief was general, the groups of people involved might be a list of 10 or more groups. This would be rather wordy. And unnecessary, given that if everyone believed something, the fact that these particular groups believed it is not of much interest: excess specificity clouds the important point. Christopher Parham (talk) 17:04, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

“The voice of the majority is no proof of justice.” Friedrich von Schiller .... or factual accuracy for that matter.--Svetovid 23:58, 13 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Alright, if it was really the case that consensus was reached among everyone that the ship sunk intact, that statement should have a citation immediately following it. If (and I think this is more likely) it was believed by those who studied the problem (as you suggested earlier), then that should be explicitly stated, not implied, and cited. In either case, the phrase and all those like it should be more specific to prevent confusion. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 17:16, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Cryptic, per instructions here, please use {{subst:FARMessage|RMS Titanic}} to notify the main contributors to the article (identifiable through the edit history page), the editor who originally nominated the article for Featured Article status (identifiable through the article history), and any relevant WikiProjects of this review. You can see examples of notifications on other FARs on this page. Thanks, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:03, 27 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

One thing bugging me here is the lack of references, and some of them are just external jumps. One [21] is even missing! Alientraveller 17:38, 5 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In regards to the ship breaking or not, I would suggest referencing it to the conclusion of the inquiry panels that were convened. Their reports should be in the public record by now. This should then be followed by a citation as to the dispute. This article: [1] may help. FrozenPurpleCube 04:59, 13 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comments-:

Unsurpassed luxury- POV, unreferenced.
Entire sections are unreferenced, and many averments in referenced sections are unreferenced.
Comparable maritime disasters—belongs in a separate article. These incidents have nothing to do with ‘’Titanic’’.
Popular culture— much improved with the deletion of the trivia section. It could be improved even more with an informed discussion of the sinking’s effect on public consciousness, as in Steven Biel’s Down with the Old Canoe: A Cultural History of the Titanic Disaster.
Notes--- many incorrectly formatted, some no more than bracketed numbers.
External links—still too long.

The article attracts a lot of edits ranging from rumors to trivia to vandalism, and has not always been timely maintained. Stability therefore has been a concern. While the piece is much improved lately it is not a great or even very good article overall. Kablammo 22:41, 25 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are citation sufficiency and formatting (1c), LEAD (2a), POV (1d). Marskell 11:14, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delist: While work has been done on the article, it has only been minor touch-ups. The problems with the citations and weasel phrases still persist. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 21:13, 15 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Remove per 1c. LuciferMorgan 01:19, 19 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Remove per 1c. Jay32183 03:27, 22 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Remove per criteria 1(c), and 2(d), and 4. Kablammo 22:41, 25 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.