Talk:SS Eurana

I think

that I have a picture of this boat. Carptrash (talk) 01:38, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:SS Eurana (1915)/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Trains2050 (talk · contribs) 05:38, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Greetings! I will be reviewing this article over the next few days, I will be reading the article carefully and will get back to you. My first impression is that it's a good article but might need some minor improvements. Looking forward to reading this article. Trains2050 (talk)

Infobox and lede

• When it mentions "when she was requisitioned by the United States Navy to serve as a transport during World War I." do you mean "transport ship during World War I". Can you make it a bit clearer?
• "she was hit by several bombs and was subsequently scuttled." Can you use a word clearer than scuttled?
• Maybe put the ship capacity for military personnel/crew on the infobox? (optional not required)
  • I usually try to avoid doing this because the actual number is all over the place.
    • Makes sense. Trains2050 (talk)

Design and construction

• It mentions it was ordered in early 1915, do you have a specific month or even better date? surely there is something out there?
  • Annette Rolph was ordered, but Eurana was built by Union Ironworks on their own decision as speculation. So there is no order date.

Operational history

• "Eurana was chartered by Sperry Flour Co. to transport a large cargo of flour to Europe." Europe is big, can you mention what country or even what part of Europe? North, south, west, east?
  • It says a couple of sentences further that she went to France.
    • Thanks, that's fine Trains2050 (talk)
• "Eurana tried to come to the help of schooner Centralia beaten up by storms, but in the dark and very foggy weather, she could not find the distressed vessel." This line should be much clearer.
  • Could you please clarify what's is unclear?
    • Sorry was just trying to read this at 5am in the morning and just could not understand but after re-reading it, seems better Trains2050 (talk)
• The paragraph about the sinking is not clear enough, can you please rephrase it.
  • Re-wrote, please indicate what was unclear
    • Now a bit better, was just all over the place and overwhelming. Now its better Trains2050 (talk)

Images

• Can you add some more Images if possible

Citations

• Seems all good

@Crook1:Putting this on hold until the changes are made, Thanks Trains2050 (talk)

@Crook1: In my opinion the article uses too much technical language that might not make sense for all readers so I am afraid to inform you that I will have to fail this article for not meeting criteria 1a which is 'the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct'. I am sorry for putting the article on hold first as I thought it was close meeting the criteria however having 2nd thoughts and putting this article against the GAC, I have no option but to fail it. Sorry again. PS: It is not impossible for the article to pass, try again in a few months. Best wishes Trains2050 (talk)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:SS Eurana (1915)/GA2. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: BurritoTunnelMaintenance (talk · contribs) 21:04, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

Beginning GA2 review

Hello, @Crook1:. I'm afraid this is my first time doing a GA review, but I hope you'll bear with me. I'm sure we can get through this with a little diligence and mutual forbearance. I've read the prior review, and I can imagine that was a frustrating experience. I'll begin with the table version of the review template, below, and work on filling it in, so you have a clear idea of my thoughts, and where things stand. Please feel free to add any comments you like at any point in the process. I'll try to be clear with my questions. BurritoTunnelMaintenance (talk) 21:04, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

In places where I feel like very minor edits would address issues I'd otherwise have raised, principally with clarity of wording, I'm going to go ahead and make those changes. If you disagree with any of them, feel free to revert them, and I will, of course, take no offense, though I may then suggest that you address whatever issue I was trying to ameliorate. BurritoTunnelMaintenance (talk) 21:57, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

General notes

• Background on Strachan founded 1886 by Frank Duncan Macpherson Strachan's father, Frank Garden Strachan, and brothers, in Savannah, Georgia.

• You might want to make the unsourced discrepant weight here match, and provide citations there.
  • If you mean the GRT/NRT, I will check when the change occurred. It was pretty common for ships to have their tonnage readjusted due to change in calculations.Crook1 (talk) 15:05, 8 February 2022 (UTC)
    •  Done Added changes.Crook1 (talk) 15:51, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

• Worth making the connection that Eurana was presumably selected as the sponsor/namesake because her husband owned Bethlehem Steel, the corporate grandparent of Union Iron Works?
  • I doubt it was the reason, other than she was his wife. Given that her sister ship was named after San Francisco mayor's wife, it's more likely it was done in solidarity. Crook1 (talk) 15:05, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

Review criteria

Rate	Attribute	Review Comment
1. Well-written:
	1a. the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct.	Generally good. Some construction is a little unwieldy, but easily clarified. Missing commas here and there, which I'll try to right as I see them. There's a fair bit of usage which I suspect to be specifically nautical; in context, it provides the right tone, but I'll need to read carefully to figure out whether all meanings can be gleaned from context, or if any of it requires explanation or internal links for a lay reader to fully understand. More on this as I go.  Done You use the abbreviation "Co." frequently, whether or not the original companies were generally referred to by that abbreviation. I'd suggest simply writing it out, unless you're specifically space-constrained, as in the infobox.  Done In the section U.S. Navy service, World War I you use the word "casuals," which needs to be defined, internally linked, or given sufficient context for a lay reader to interpret. I'm guessing perhaps it means US citizens who were overseas as volunteers in non-US military roles? Casuals were soldiers and officers temporarily separated from their unit. I don't think Wiki defines it though.Crook1 (talk) 04:37, 8 February 2022 (UTC)  Done In the section Operational history, you use the phrase "entered trade," which is another term-of-art that needs to be explained, or common language used instead. In the section Collision with the Second Narrow Bridge you use the word "sheering," which needs to be defined, linked, or given more context. Sheer (ship) does not provide much illumination. Do you perhaps mean "shearing"? Anyway, this is unclear. It was a typo, fixed. Probably the closest would be Shear flow article, though it's kind of short and not overly specific.Crook1 (talk) 17:32, 1 March 2022 (UTC)
	1b. it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.	Section capitalization is fixed now. Layout is sensible, and the material is organized in a straight-forward chronology. I don't see any fiction. We have an elegant variation problem throughout the article. Many synonyms are used for she/ship/vessel/freighter/steamer, resulting in a kind of clunkiness, and leading to occasional unclarity as to whether the same ship is being referred to, or some different one.
2. Verifiable with no original research:
	2a. it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline.	Done Reference "atlanta-constitution-1916" doesn't mention the Southland Steamship Corporation, nor Jacksonville. Do you know of another source for those, or want to trim the sentence down to just what's backed by the citation? Added Crook1 (talk) 19:43, 11 February 2022 (UTC)  Done The Miramar Ship Index citation is to a paid-access source. Do you have any other sources for that data, that you could cite instead? AddedCrook1 (talk) 19:43, 11 February 2022 (UTC) Reference "sfexaminer-1915" does not say that construction on the two ships began at the same time, it says that the Annette Rolph began on June 1, and that the Eurana was expected to be begun on July 1. I've amended the text, but if you have information otherwise, you should find a citation to support it. Keel laying not equal start of building. The ship was built in 70 working days between keel laying and launch, so it puts her keel laying on June 4. I will a ref soon.Crook1 (talk) 17:07, 11 February 2022 (UTC) Note that all references I found show the sponsor's name as "Emma Eurana Dinkey Schwab", rather than "Eurana E. Schwab", so I've corrected those. If you disagree, please find a reliable source. reverted. I added a ref where she is referred by that name. Perhaps she preferred her middle name?Crook1 (talk) 17:07, 11 February 2022 (UTC) It appears that she did go by her middle name, Eurana, in essentially every source. However, every authoritative source I've found (things about her, as opposed to things in which she's mentioned incidentally) say that her full name was Emma Eurana (Dinkey) Schwab. I'm fine with her being referred to as "Eurana Schwab," since that was certainly the most common form of her name. But I'm very hard-pressed to see "Eurana E. Schwab" as anything other than a one-off mistake by a pressed-for-time journalist who didn't know anything about her. "Eurana Schwab" gets 5,520 Google hits, while "Eurana E. Schwab" gets six, three of which are this article and its translations. BurritoTunnelMaintenance (talk) 14:59, 12 February 2022 (UTC) Should we assume that "She was also defensively armed with two 4 in (102 mm) naval guns" is also supported by reference "us-naval-vessels-1919"? Yes.Crook1 (talk) 17:20, 1 March 2022 (UTC)
	2b. reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose).	I don't think any of the sources are controversial. Some of the contemporaneous media accounts may have been poorly-researched at the time, but I don't think the article relies upon portions that are problematic.
	2c. it contains no original research.	The article uses a lot of nautical terms-of-art, which may appear to the lay reader to be original research, but which, upon inspection, accurately summarize the facts as represented in the cited sources. My recommendation is to, wherever possible, use common language in the article, rather than terms-of-art. So, although there may be a superficial appearance of original research, I've found the references to be solid, and I've found no speculation, fiction, hypotheses, or drawing-of-conclusions.
	2d. it contains no copyright violations or plagiarism.	CopyBot/Turnitin don't find any plagiarized text, and I don't see anything inappropriately copied from the cited sources.
3. Broad in its coverage:
	3a. it addresses the main aspects of the topic.	It's definitely comprehensive. If it leaves questions unanswered, I'll note them here.
	3b. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).	It feels to me as though it strikes an excellent balance, leavening the many specific details with fascinating anecdotes and stories about its history.
	4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.	I see nothing I'd characterize as biased.
	5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.	There are no edit-wars or argument over the facts.
6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:
	6a. media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content.	A single image isn't much to go on. I recognize that there may not be too many extant images of the ship itself, and it may not have changed appearance significantly through its twenty-six years. Perhaps an image of the sponsor would liven things up? removed as this is an article about ship. There are other pictures but they are still under copyright, most likely. At least the way Wikimedia defines it.Crook1 (talk) 17:08, 11 February 2022 (UTC) A map of PQ-16's route, showing the location of the sinking?  Done Thank you Hohum for the additional photograph! Marking the images section as complete. BurritoTunnelMaintenance (talk) 10:25, 7 May 2022 (UTC)
	6b. media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.	I'd say we're still too thin here. There's a single image, and it's un-captioned. The rest are under copyright. I think the earliest will be available in 2024. Also many articles have a single image, so I'm not sure how this is detrimental to the article content. Crook1 (talk) 17:20, 1 March 2022 (UTC)  Done I added the file's caption to the infobox, which should solve the uncaptioned issue. ― Tuna 23:20, 5 May 2022 (UTC)
	7. Overall assessment.

Status query

BurritoTunnelMaintenance, Crook1, where does this review stand? What is left to be done? I should probably point out that the GA criteria number 6 on images/media start out by saying Illustrated, if possible: the "if possible" is a key part of the criteria. It's only possible if there are either free images or valid non-free use rationales are provided for images that aren't free, and those rationales are highly restrictive. Some good articles don't have any images at all because nothing can legitimately be used. BurritoTunnelMaintenance, as this is your first GA review, let me recommend Wikipedia:What the Good article criteria are not to your attention. I found it very helpful when I was doing my first GA reviews in terms of understanding what the criteria mean and what they don't. BlueMoonset (talk) 04:06, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

@BlueMoonset:, as you say, this is my first GA review, so although I've tried to be flexible and spent quite a lot of time working on the article as well, I may be applying standards that are too high, or are not in accord with the consensus understanding of GA criteria. My concern with criteria 6 is not so much that there aren't multiple photos of the ship... I understand that many or all of what remain may still be under copyright. But the article wouldn't really be improved by the addition of more photos of the same ship. I fear that in this case, different angles will not reveal more of interest. But there seems to be no effort on anyone's part to illustrate the article with any of the myriad of other things would help the reader understand the story and bring it to life. The story of how the ship came by its name is interesting, and gives contemporaneous color, why not illustrate that? The single most dramatic incident in the ship's existence, its wartime sinking, goes unillustrated, even with a map? If there really were nothing to be done, sure, but this seems like over-constraint to the detriment of the article. Then in 2a we have the "Eurana E." problem... We can't just arbitrarily pick alternate names for actual historical people who were important in their time and widely covered in the press... We need to use their actual names, or the names they went by, not something sourced from a single typo, in the face of all evidence. And in 1b, we have a hell of an elegant variation problem, which needs time to fix. I put in a bunch of time working on the article, and I'm happy to put in more, but not if it's going to get reverted. Anyway, my sense of the article is that it's about 90% there, but the remaining problems need to be addressed, or we need to abandon this shot at GA. ...and the problems will still need to be fixed, regardless. BurritoTunnelMaintenance (talk) 09:30, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

@BlueMoonset: Frankly I'm not sure what this reviewer is trying to do. To me it appears he simply has an issue with my writing style. Saying that I can't use synonyms for the word 'ship' is simply ridiculous. Many articles don't have a sponsor name even mentioned anywhere, because these people are usually not notable, why have their pictures inserted? The name the sponsor was using is quite clear, since the ship was named after her and it was her middle name, not sure what's the issue there. Map of PQ-16 route? The convoy is linked and it has all the necessary info there. The goal not to add things that had already been added, but direct a reader to the page where such info can be obtained. Not to mention the coordinates of sinking are provided, clicking on them will open the map to show the location. Perhaps the reviewer thinks that this article has to provide full info about every possible thing that was associated with the ship? I don't think we need this kind of detail. I think the criteria for GA are quite clear. Does the article has issues with grammar, typos etc? if so, fix it or ask me to do that. If not, let's move on. If we gonna argue about style of writing this will go nowhere. IMHO.Crook1 (talk) 17:27, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

I'm trying to make the article better. Enough better that it's "good." Yes, there are some problems with your writing. Not a lot. The most egregious one is the WP:ELVAR, but I don't see you working to correct it. This isn't some "difference in style," and it's not something I invented. This is something which can be done correctly, or done incorrectly. As the very long article on the topic of people doing it incorrectly explains. If you want me to pass the article on criterion 1, fix the WP:ELVAR. As for 2a, you're persistently misnaming an actual historical person. She has an actual name, you can't just change it because you feel like it, or don't like her real name, or something. And if you're really dead-set on the article only having one illustration, sure, I guess, whatever, though it seems kinda rude to go all deletionist on folks who disagree with you. Wikipedia is about conveying information, not about owning some article to the exclusion of others. BurritoTunnelMaintenance (talk) 14:18, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

BurritoTunnelMaintenance, Crook1, I apologize for not returning after my initial status query. It seemed that I ought at least to do a minor copyedit and deal with some of the issues above, which I have just completed. About a few of those issues:

• It does seem likely that the 1915 article in the San Francisco Examiner placed the "E." in Mrs. Schwab's name incorrectly. When sources disagree on something like a name, the best thing to do is to keep what the sources do agree on, and add a note to explain what the discrepancies are; that's what I've done here with "Mrs. Eurana Schwab". It seems clear that she didn't use "Emma" but was known as "Eurana", so that should be the case in the article. I only put the note in the article proper; if you think it's important, it can be referenced in the infobox as well.
• There was a "use dmy dates" template at the bottom of the article (which should go near the top, so I moved it): this means "10 March" rather than "March 10" even if the year isn't present. Mind, it's odd that an article about an American vessel would use European-style dating, but the template's been in place for eight years, so it shouldn't be changed at this point, especially when the preponderance of use is clearly dmy.
• I did a bit of copyediting here and there; perhaps more is still needed. I'm not accustomed to the nomenclature for ships, cargo, and so on.
• I added a "clarification needed" ("clarity" template) to the third paragraph in the "Design and construction" subsection; all the modern cranes sounds overly broad (how many types were there?), and as the entire paragraph is unsourced, I was unable to check to see what was meant. This needs to be addressed.
• MOS:LEADLENGTH is an issue that needs to be dealt with: the lead is currently a single paragraph and should be three or four based on the article's length. Some expansion is in order along with the paragraphing.
• WP:ELVAR is an essay, not part of the Wikipedia Manual of Style, and definitely not a requirement for a GA. As such, if particular uses are problematic—if they get in the way of the clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience prose requirement—then examples of such instances should be proffered by the reviewer, and they (and others like them) should be addressed by the nominator. If they don't truly affect clarity, concision, and comprehension, then it's probably a Featured Article issue, not a Good Article one.

I hope this is helpful. BlueMoonset (talk) 20:34, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

Regrettably, Crook1 is refusing to allow any edits whatever to Eurana Schwab's name, regardless of what the Manual of Style says about proper naming style or many sources about her say about her name. This looks distressingly like WP:OWNERSHIP issues, but even without that aspect, I don't see how this article will ever achieve GA status so long as the clearly inaccurate form of her name remains in the article. Pinging reviewer BurritoTunnelMaintenance. There are also other issues that still need to be fixed, but if this one isn't rectified within the next seven days, I recommend failing the nomination. BlueMoonset (talk) 00:18, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

I agree. I've made one last attempt to correct Mrs. Schwab's name. If it gets reverted, I think we're done, on WP:OWN. Unrelatedly, I note that the article Farrell Lines claims that Alamar was owned by Farrell subsidiary American Export Lines, yet that article makes no mention of her, nor does this article mention either Farrell or American Export. In a cursory Google search, I find no evidence to support the association, so I'll remove it from the Farrell page unless someone knows better. BurritoTunnelMaintenance (talk) 11:25, 7 May 2022 (UTC)

Passing comment: Why are the women mentioned in this article first and foremost associated to their spouses? For example: On 11 September 1915, Mrs. Eurana E. Schwab, wife of Charles M. Schwab, pressed a button in her house in Bethlehem and the electrically operated guillotine cut the cord releasing the vessel into the water. We're informed of the identity of her husband before the trivial statement that she pressed a button. It's not necessary and contributes nada to reader comprehension. Nowhere are males referred to as 'Mr.' nor are they referred foremost to as 'the husband of ...'. You can almost get away with 'Mrs. John McGregor' because 'John' is typically a masculine name, but elsewhere it's dated. Mr rnddude (talk) 23:11, 7 May 2022 (UTC)

Second opinion requested; previous reviewer blocked

BurritoTunnelMaintenance has been blocked as a sockpuppet, so I have requested a second opinion in the hopes of finding someone to finish this GA review. BlueMoonset (talk) 02:39, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

I'll step up.. next few days. Ealdgyth (talk) 01:31, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

Second opinion

Before diving deeper - what makes convoy.web a reliable source? Ealdgyth (talk) 17:18, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

@GreatLakesShips: Anything? Ealdgyth (talk) 12:51, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

Ealdgyth, the nominator of this article is Crook1, not GreatLakesShips. It's been about a month since their last edit; hopefully, they will return if they get this ping. BlueMoonset (talk) 01:11, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

Well, they haven't edited since May 4, so I am afraid I'll need to fail this article. HOpefully someone else can use the suggestions above. Ealdgyth (talk) 13:20, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

Mrs. Eurana Schwab

Attempts to correct the name of Mrs. Schwab, wife of Charles M. Schwab (Chairman of Bethlehem Steel, and doubtless the reason Mrs. Schwab was the namesake of the ship), keeps getting reverted. While the SF Examiner source used does give her name as "Mrs. Eurana E. Schwab", it is likely that this is an error on their part: the New York Times obituary for Mrs. Schwab gives her name as "Mrs. Emma Eurana Dinkey Schwab" (and her husband as the same Charles M. Schwab). Another newspaper article published after her death gives her name as "Mrs. E. Eurana Schwab", which is a version of the Times name. Insisting on what is likely an incorrect initial because it's given in a single source is both dubious and an unnecessary detail unless there are other Eurana Schwabs around who are likely to be confused with her. (The reason her husband has the middle initial is because broker Charles R. Schwab is also very well known and likely to be confused with Charles M.—their articles are mutually disambiguated.)

Omitting any initials from the name makes sense, given the conflict between these sources; insisting on its retention needs an explanation here. Pinging editor Crook1 for that explanation, since the addition of a disambiguating note (which does not interrupt the flow of the article at all, and noted the source discrepancies) was not deemed satisfactory. Thank you. BlueMoonset (talk) 04:58, 30 April 2022 (UTC)

You were told already that her preferred name was Eurana. The name is correct, but more importantly, this article is about ship, named incidentally Eurana. Which kind of tells you what name she preferred. She also sponsored more than one ship, and every time she was presented as Eurana Schwab. Now, if you want to write an article about Mrs. Schwab, feel free to do so and discuss which name she went by and why, but this minor redundant argument about which specific name should go first does not belong here.Crook1 (talk) 19:22, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

Actually, I wasn't told any such thing. You are probably confusing me with your GA reviewer. However, looking at MOS:NAME and its subsections, it's clear the thing to do is to remove her initials and also unnecessary uses of "Mrs.", which I have done. Please do not revert unless you can cite a reason from the Wikipedia Manual of Style. Thank you. BlueMoonset (talk) 00:39, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

Crook1, your latest reversion of my edits without further discussion makes it clear that you are not interested in true accuracy here. You know that the sources disagree as to her exact name, yet you insist on retaining an initial that is dubious despite the MOS. I've spent enough time on this. Be aware that so long as you insist on retaining dubious material, the Good Article nomination cannot succeed, since it fails verifiability. Is it really worth it? BlueMoonset (talk) 01:06, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

Second image and other ideas

Hello! I noticed this article is in need of extra images. Is there a particular reason why this image is unused, even though it comes from the US Navy Naval History and Heritage Command? It is an odd aspect ratio, yet it serves as a good example of what her dazzle camouflage looked like. The NHHC also has a third image of the ship, albeit at a poor angle. This image can be used in a pinch, seeing images such as this have been used as accompanying images. Regarding other images, has anyone found illustrations of the ship's equipment or sister ship? These images can illustrate the types of technology used onboard. Also, wouldn't it be possible to add an image of the shipwreck's location? Would it be beneficial for me to serve as a set of fresh eyes, to potentially correct violations of MOS:NAME and the problems with elegant variation? I wanted to ask this beforehand, seeing the amount of reversions and disagreements done. GGOTCC (talk) 02:57, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

They are kind of poor. there are better images that should eb out of copyright in 2024.Crook1 (talk) 18:08, 4 May 2022 (UTC)