# Talk:USS Omaha (CL-4)

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This review is transcluded from Talk:USS Omaha (CL-4)/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.
Reviewer: Parsecboy (talk · contribs) 20:44, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

I'll take this for review. Parsecboy (talk) 20:44, 1 August 2017 (UTC)
A couple of initial impressions:

The article is excessively sub-divided - there are sections with a single sentence in them. A good rule of thumb is, if there aren't at least 2 parapgraphs, it probably doesn't need its own section.
The article incorporates DANFS text, which is not really appropriate for GA and higher. DANFS in general has problems including flowery language, POV issues, etc. An example of this here is "Omaha quickly sprang into action to protect the tender, silencing the enemy position..." - it's overly dramatic and POV.
Will conduct a thorough read-through later. Parsecboy (talk) 20:48, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

I went ahead and made some changes based on your initial impressions. Merged some of the sections into larger sections and removed more of the DANFS text. Thanks for the input and look forward to assessment. Pennsy22 (talk) 05:40, 2 August 2017 (UTC)
The DANFS stuff needs to be rewritten on the scale of what I did here to USS Wichita (CA-45) - in a nutshell, it should be paraphrased, not directly copied. Parsecboy (talk) 13:09, 2 August 2017 (UTC)
I've made a lot of revisions to the article, removing unrelevant sections, and rewriting most of the rest. Please let me know if this looks better. Thank you. Pennsy22 (talk) 10:54, 18 August 2017 (UTC)
It's better, but there's still a lot of fairyly close paraphrasing - for example, "Omaha's sailors were joined by a diesel engine specialist from Somers's ship's company to help prevent Odenwald's loss. Omaha's SOC floatplanes and Somers screened the operation." is still worded to closely to what you have in the article now, "Omaha's sailors were assisted by a diesel engine specialist from Somers's ship's company to help prevent Odenwald's loss. Omaha's SOC floatplanes and Somers guarded the operation." One option would be to rewrite it as "a diesel engine specialist from Somers joined Omaha's boarding party to keep Odenwald from sinking. After her condition had been stabilized, the three ships steamed to Port of Spain, Trinidad, with Omaha's SOC floatplanes screening them." That's just one option, of course.
The method I use when rewriting the DANFS text is to copy the plain DANFS text over and rewrite it paragraph by paragraph from scratch, deleting the DANFS stuff as I go. I find that easier than trying to reword existing paragraphs - the writing process seems freer to me that way and you're less wedded to the old structure. Parsecboy (talk) 14:35, 18 August 2017 (UTC)
Thank you. I rewrote those sentences a couple of times, I think when I rewrote it them the last time I must of wound back up close to the original. I will rewrite them. Thanks for the copy idea, I had tried a similar style, I'll give that a go. Pennsy22 (talk) 03:52, 19 August 2017 (UTC)
@Parsecboy:, I have made a lot more changes, I hope I'm getting close. Pennsy22 (talk) 03:34, 20 August 2017 (UTC)
It's looking much better now - I'm not seeing much in the way of direct copy anymore. I ran the article through earwig's tool and it seems fine - the only substantive hit is from a site that cribbed text from this article.
A few other comments:

I wouldn't use the {{clear}} template, as it creates a lot of whitespace (depending on monitor size, of course, but I'd think it would be a problem on anything besides mobile devices)
Removed {{clear}} templates.
On the other hand, there are a number of sections with no images, and there are a lot available on Commons and I think there are some at NHHC that haven't been uploaded here.
Downloaded a couple more images and utilized them in the article. Had considered adding a {{gallery}} at the bottom of the article. Thoughts?
Watch out for WP:ENGVAR - the convert templates need to have the |sp=us parameter added so the output is in meters, rather than metres
Removed |abbr= parameter to avoid the issue.
There are a number of duplicate links - there's a handy tool here you can use to find them.
Thank you, great tool. Removed duplicate links in article.
There's a citation error with about a quarter of the Watts footnotes - it's because you typed it as just "Watt" instead of "Watts"
Stupid mistake, corrected.
This isn't necessary for GA, but if you're planning on taking the article to A or FA-class, I'd recommend looking at other sources to see what can be added - Rohwer's Chronology of the War at Sea is a good place to look for any ship that saw action in WWII
I don't think http://www.world-war.co.uk/warloss.php3 counts as a reliable source - Rohwer, actually, would probably be an easy replacement for this one
Found another book for reference, changed.
Ditto for Global Security - that was discussed at the WP:RS/N relatively recently and I don't think it was deemed to be a reliable source - this is also something that's probably very easily replaced.
Went with another source, again a book, Global Security actually referenced Wikipedia, so I'm sure that wouldn't of worked anyway. Thanks for advice on Rohwer, will look into getting a copy.
Parsecboy (talk) 12:21, 21 August 2017 (UTC)

I believe I covered everything, let me know if there is anything else. Thanks Pennsy22 (talk) 08:51, 22 August 2017 (UTC)
It's looking much better. The one last thing I'd like to see improved is the lead - it's pretty short for how long the article is, and there really isn't any information on what the ship did during the war besides Dragoon, and it doesn't mention what happened to the ship after the war. I'd say there would be a line on the wartime patrols (perhaps with a mention of the two blockade runners sunk) and when and where she was broken up. The first sentence also needs to be fixed - I'd tweak it to read USS Omaha (CL-4) was the lead ship of the Omaha class of light cruisers. Parsecboy (talk) 12:00, 22 August 2017 (UTC)
I expanded the lead, I also split it into three paragraphs to read better, I know sometimes people write them as one long paragraph. It can be changed if need be. Pennsy22 (talk) 10:39, 23 August 2017 (UTC)
I took into account what the other editor had said about the article, I've made some changes but feel that the article meets the criteria, while not perfect, for GA. I've removed what I felt was trivial while trying to note hightlights of her career. Please let me know if you would like to see further changes.Pennsy22 (talk) 03:46, 30 August 2017 (UTC)

I've just done a massive revert at USS Oglala (CM-4), then looked at another similar article with very poor tone, then at this one. It is awful, sorry. Too much detail, too biassed towards a US-centric tone and, more generally, just a poor tone. Things like the Hazards at sea section just make me wince.
These are major problems and the GAN should perhaps have speedily failed. - Sitush (talk) 16:15, 23 August 2017 (UTC)
Random example: Omaha spotted a light on the horizon at 01:30, on 1 June 1942. The light, as it turned out, was from a small lifeboat with eight surviving crewmen aboard from the sunken British merchant Charlbury As it turned out? Really? And does the precise time really matter? The entire paragraph needs rewriting and probably should start something like On 1 June 1942, Omaha spotted a small lifeboat carrying eight survivors from the sunken British merchant ship, Charlbury. - Sitush (talk) 16:23, 23 August 2017 (UTC)
Or The ship identified herself as Willmoto, but did not satisfactorily identify herself to the American warships.. We need to make our mind up - did it identify or not? - Sitush (talk) 16:51, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

Sitush, headings like this one aren't exactly helpful.
Yes, the line you identified could be written more concisely to remove some of the details, but there is no universal opinion on what constitutes excessive or insufficient detail. Is the time relevant? Maybe, maybe not. I am of the mind that one should defer to the judgement of the person doing the writing, since they're doing the work. Simply enforcing your or my opinions on the appropriate level of detail is obviously an unworkable solution.
I don't see the problem with the second line. The ship said she was Willmoto, but the American ships believed that to be false. And they were correct. Parsecboy (talk) 13:21, 25 August 2017 (UTC)
I am either (a) going to overhaul the mess or (b) put it up for GAR. It is badly written. - Sitush (talk) 16:53, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

If anyone is interested in the engines for this group a very detailed description, including diagrams, from a marine engineering point of view is available at: New Scout Cruisers of Immense Engine Power (Marine Engineering, v. 26, #2, February 1921 issue). Apparently the power to size ship ratio was notable at the time.
72.196.202.60 (talk) 20:03, 4 November 2018 (UTC)