Talk:Attack on Pearl Harbor/Archive 7

message: Sorry if this is wrong, I'm probably thinking of the wrong battle >_< but wasn't Pearl Harbor regarded as one of the worst military blunders ever? I'm not an expert at all, so I'm probably wrong...I'm not changing it because of that. Redsox7897 22:43, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Not really, the Japanese won the battle its just that they failed to destroy the carriers, which were their main target. Good friend100 01:40, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Going to war with America might have been a strategic blunder, but the attack on Pearl Harbour was a brilliantly-executed success... it's not often that you find eight battleships destroyed or damaged (along with hundreds of aircraft) on one side and no significant loss on the other! The Land 09:38, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: "the attack on Pearl Harbour was a brilliantly-executed success"? Since when? It missed every important target: carriers, tank farm, Hypo, & (most important) the Sub Base. Read the article.  Trekphiler 17:36, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Japanese victory?

message: Item 1 on the list of items needed for restoration has been accomplished.  Thanks to J. D. Redding for the suggestion on how to reduce the TOC. CodeCarpenter 15:18, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Table of Contents has been shrunk 

message: The second issue has been resolved, regarding inline links.  Thanks go to Marskell for explaining what needed to be done. CodeCarpenter 16:32, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Web links have been standardized. 

message: Actualy, they already appear to have been a standard cquote format.  In addition the Medal of Honor list has been commented out, and the comments about Vietnam and other countries getting independence after WWII.  CodeCarpenter 17:48, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Quotes have been standardized. 

message: I adjusted quotes, and adjusted picture locations for smoother viewing without alot of whitespace following a image with a short paragraph. CodeCarpenter 20:42, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Quotes have been reduced 

message: The article listed the strength of 1st Destroyer Squadron as "1 destroyer". I corrected to 9 destroyers; it was the senior formation to the subordinate desdivs, hence it should include all of them. I added a  tag, because I'm unclear if IJN used destroyer leaders or light cruisers as flotilla leaders; can somebody who knows (or has Pearl Harbor Papers or Willmott handy) confirm & correct, if needed?  Trekphiler 19:09, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Off the number?

message: The caption reads "Captain". IIRC, he was only a Commander at the time. Is there a policy on whether to use contemporary or final ranks?  Trekphiler 02:58, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: On a Genda, off a Genda?

message: Not removed, just moved into the previous paragraph.  In each case, they fit in with no problems, IMO.  I guess since nobody else is making changes for the FA return, i will have to tackle "listishness" next. CodeCarpenter 20:42, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Single sentence paragraphs fixed 

message: One of the items was to reduce the size of the article.  Since that was pointed out, it has actually gotten larger, despite multiple deletions.  Can I suggest a moritorium on additional verbiage until we get this page cleaned up? CodeCarpenter 20:42, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reduction in size 

message: The only list that I could find worthy of removal was the Order of Battle, since that was covered not only in the previous paragraph, but also on a separate wiki page.  I will consider it done unless others remove more.  The first and second waves have lists of attackers, but I felt they should stay.  I do not feel strongly about it, though, so feel free if you have good reason. CodeCarpenter 20:58, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Listishness" reduced. 

message: If it is, then I think it would be good to include the sound file in the article. Sort of like  is in the 9/11 article.Borisblue 05:33, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Is the "day of infamy" speech PD?

message: Because the POV comments were many in the review, I am splitting these 16 items out to 7a-7p, to be worked on individually.  I am merging the repeats, and summarizing the suggested changes here, but the original comments can be found at FAR Comments
a. The article is written from the point-of-view of the USA. 
b. The background section is a potted history of Japan, and the USA is scarcely covered at all.  
c. The 'strategy', 'plans', 'organization' of the Imperial Japanese navy get sections but only the 'preparedness' of the USA.  
d. A list of the winners of the Medal of Honor (NOTE: Already Removed)
e. The heroics of American servicemen with little material about heroic behaviour of anyone on the Japanese side or honours granted. (NOTE: Nine minisub martyrs is mentioned, award from Hitler mentioned.)
f. The Meiji Restoration and the 9/11 attacks have little direct relevance to the article. The article could be much shorter and better for it.  
g. "Many paragraphs of the sections on the impact of the attack strike me as dubious." Not sure what can be done about this other than EVEN MORE citations.  
h. There are a number of 'citation needed' templates; there is plenty of contestable material which lacks citation. (UPDATE: 7/2/2007 All have been either cited or removed.) 
i. "Why did it result in a U.S. declaration of war" (Gee, because American soldiers were killed and a bunch of American installations were attacked and because later that day Japan declared war on the US?) 
j. The opening paragraph could use a sentence or so describing Japan's intentions or goals in the attack. "Why did Japan attack?" (We will need a citation to state the purpose in few words, article is long already.) 
k. I count four phrases in this section directly referring to the significance of the attack to the US, but none for Japan.  
l. This is an article about a single given attack, not about the entire background of Japan's rise to militarism or the causes of WWII.  
m. By explaining all of this, and not devoting equivalent background to US events, it implies an assumption that the reader knows US history and that Japanese history is esoteric and not widely known.  Therein lies the Americanocentrist bias.  
n. Considering the length and detail of the lead-up (prelude, background, preparations) section, I wonder if perhaps this should be moved to come after the section on the attack itself. I certainly understand the logic behind a more chronological approach (as it stands now, prelude -> event -> aftermath), but as it stands now, a reader has to scroll down several pages (or skim or read through quite a bit of prelude/background material) before coming to the central core topic of the article. Could this work better by presenting the Attack section right after a far briefer causes/background section, following it up with the lengthier discussion of both prelude and aftermath? (This suggestion has merit.  If this article were a movie, the audience would need to wait an hour before the bombs started dropping.) 
o. "Japanese views of the attack" should be merged along with other views to be more standard and global.  
p. "views today" portion can be merged or removed. 
I am hoping that this set of changes can be done over the next couple of weeks. CodeCarpenter 14:26, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Also I think more should be said about the Second Sino-Japanese War and its effect on pushing Japan into attacking the US. It was precisely Japan's inability to bring the war in China (which began in 1937) to an acceptable conclusion that snowballed into international condemnation and economic sanctions. In comparison Japan suffered little economically and politically in the early 1930s when China readily settled with Japan in numerous incidents. There was absolutely no need for international intervention because separate peace were made between the two., but the situation was different in 1941 when the war had gone on for four years already. Blueshirts 18:32, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

text: As I've said above, I do think a ref to 11 Sept is warranted, for historical perspective (& as reply to those who've read Clausen). Re the POV redaction of "strategic blunder" of Hitler declaring war, I've never seen a historiographer who thought it was anything else. Want a source? Try Morison's 14v history of USN ops, for a start; I think Willmott's Barrier says it, too.  Trekphiler 23:29 & 23:32, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  The section on POV issues, from the FAR, split out for individual TODO actions. 

message: :: Isn't :Image:USSArizona PearlHarbor.jpg the canonical picture of the Pearl Harbor attack? Why not put that in the infobox?
::—wwoods 20:13, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, right now the Arizona picture is near the bottom of the article.  I agree that it should be in the info box. It was in the infobox for multiple years until it was moved out in 2006. I made an edit to place it in the info box, but it was reverted with a comment about Neutral Point of View.  This seems overly sensitive (and of what, I'm not sure) to me.  Encyclopedia Britannica uses this picture as the lead in their article, do you suppose they are pushing some dark point-of-view by doing so? --Paul 01:49, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Two Images 

message: I deleted this:
:"They decided:
:
as redundant. This had just been summarized in the article; there's no need for a block quote, too.  Trekphiler 23:35, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: You can't quote me

message: I've had a trim of the lead section - there were many unneccessary words there, so I've taken them out. Can you check many make sure I've not removed anything genuinely necessary? The Land 21:28, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lead section 

message: I'm inclined to remove the tag on this:
*The timing of a third strike meant aircraft would probably have to recover after dark. Night operations from aircraft carriers were in their infancy in 1941, and neither Japan nor anyone else had developed reliable techniques and doctrine.
because it's correct as it stands. Even as late as 1944, Mitcher's (?) order to turn the lights on to recover his birds was bold & unusual; recall Spruance risked disaster at Midway, had he encountered IJN surface forces, 'cause he couldn't fly his birds at night. Yeah, it sounds peculiar now, but they didn't have MLS & ILS & radar in the nose then... Trekphiler 00:59, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That may be the case but it still probably needs a citation. The Land 08:37, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed; I just can't find one...  Trekphiler 14:03, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: That's a {{Fact|date=July 2007}}, Jack

message: How does one find the exact size of the Attack on Pearl Harbor article? Is there a button or option you can click. As an aside, the article may--or may not--be 100 kilobytes long but this is a special article...whose impact is similar to the 9/11 attacks or the 2005 London bombings. One should expect an extra-long article. I have removed some unnecessary material recently, however. Leoboudv 09:00, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The article length is 100kb at the moment, as one can see from the edit page screen. More relevant for 'is this article too long?' is to check the prose size of the article (copy-and-paste the body of the article from a non-edit page into an edit page or wordprocessor and see what length it comes up with). I make the prose size 64k, which is still on the long side. The topic probably justifies a longish article, but skimming the article I still think there is some duplication or irrelevancy that can be removed to make it shorter. The Land 11:32, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

text: As I said, at the relevant measure of size the article is 64k now, but needs to be shorter WP:LENGTH refers. The Land 00:16, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

text: Per WP:LENGTH the only relevant measure is readable prose, which should be 6,000 to 10,000 words, or 30 to 50 KB. Images, and embedded references are irrelevant when assessing article length.  For instance, the San Francisco, California article is over 100K in total length, but only 43K or so readable prose. The Pearl Harbor article is in excess of 72K and 11,000 words in readable prose.  It really needs to be cut by 20 to 30 percent. --Paul 02:32, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Size of Pearl Harbor Article

message: I'm not sure why the other image was removed. It wasn't my intention to replace the first one, and I think that more images is better (within reason). If a proper caption can be written, putting it back into the article really isn't a bad thing. Consequentially 15:57, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I haven't been around for this article, so I'm not much weight. Still, if the image is relevant to the text, it can help to give more than one example of whatever it is your talking about. I imagine that you're going to trim down the impact section, and it doesn't make sense to have more column inches of picture than column inches of text. But on a philosophical level, why not include (free use) images when there's enough text to merit it? Consequentially 19:24, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Images