Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/USS Romeo/archive1: Difference between revisions

USS Romeo (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

As of 1 December 2025, 15:24 (UTC), this page is active and open for discussion. An FAC coordinator will be responsible for closing the nomination.

Nominator(s): Hog Farm _Talk 04:03, 29 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Another FAC for a tinclad warship, to follow USS Marmora (1862) from 2023. Marmora was possibly the best-documented of the tinclads so this article is correspondingly a bit shorter, but I think there is sufficient meat here for FAC. Hog Farm _Talk 04:03, 29 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

• Suggest adding alt text
• File:A_personal_history_of_Ulysses_S._Grant,_and_sketch_of_Schuyler_Colfax_(1868)_(14781986001).jpg: is a more specific tag available?
• File:USS_Prairie_bird_(1862).jpg: source link is dead. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:06, 29 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Fritzmann

• “the operations”
• Not necessarily part of the FAC, but is there potential for a White River expedition article?
  • Possibly – there is a reliable secondary source here. Christ’s Civil War Arkansas 1863 devotes a couple of pages to it if I recall correctly. There may be coverage is Volume I of Bearss’ Vicksburg trilogy after the coverage of the Battle of Arkansas Post. I would need to do some further research here. Article titling might be tricky – the Encyclopedia of Arkansas has entries for White River expeditions in August 1862, December 1864, and two in February 1864 in addition to this one. The naval operations associated with the Battle of St. Charles in June/July 1862 are also known as the White River expedition. Hog Farm _Talk 22:22, 29 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Yazoo Pass expedition, “expedition” is not capitalized in its own article. Recommend standardizing whether that sort of thing is capitalized, as it should at least be consistent in this article (later on, there is Little Rock campaign to the contrary)
• Perhaps instead of “was part of an expedition” which is quite passive, “joined” might be better; would also convey that the expedition was already underway when Romeo met it
• “but was in poor condition and required repairs, before a transfer to the Tennessee River” something here doesn’t sound right. I think that is because it insinuates that the transfer was because of the ship’s poor condition, which I don’t think was the case if I’m reading correctly.
• “Patrolling on the Mississippi River” ?
• “By April and May 1865, the war was ending” I would suggest something like “With the war drawing to a close in spring 1865, Romeo was declared…”
• I just wanted to say I appreciate how you use notes throughout the article; I think they are a greatly underutilized asset on Wikipedia, and here they make this a much smoother read
• “tonnage was 175 tons” what kind of tonnage are we talking here? Gross, net, deadweight, or does the source not specify? It may also be an antiquated measure, which might necessitate a conversion into a unit in modern usage
  • Here’s a quote from Silverstone 1989 p. xi “Tonnage: This figure is taken from various sources, many of which do not explain what formula of measurement was used. A merchant ship’s measurement was usually expressed in “tons burden”, a measurement of the carrying capacity of the ship, giving little guide to its size, and the rules for calculating this measurement varied widely.” Silverstone identifies the various measurements used for ships with the legend of D for displacement, B for tons burden (old measurement) n/r for new register tonnage (a new measurement system was put into place in 1864) and GRT for British gross registered tonnage. Silverstone just uses “tons”. Neither Smith nor Way‘s Packet Directory include a more specific measurement than “tons”. Hog Farm _Talk 00:04, 30 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• “metres” should probably be “meters” as the rest of the article looks like AE
• Is there a reason for alternating from feet/inches to meters as the primary unit of measurement?
  • This is apparently the result of this 2023 edit by Fabvill citing MOS:NUM although the relevant text there appears to “In non-scientific articles with strong ties to the United States, the primary units are US customary (pounds, miles, feet, inches, etc.)” which would support using feet/inches rather than the metric system. The US military did not use the metric system during the Civil War. Hog Farm _Talk 00:04, 30 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• I’m not sure how it is reported in the source, but shouldn’t knots be used as the primary unit for naval speed?
• Is there a link for “Old River”? I’m assuming it’s a tributary of the Yazoo but I’m not sure from the text
• “as part of Union operations…” should there be a link to the battle here like in the lead?
• “The next day, Des Arc was reached” very passive, also was this just by Romeo and the three other raiding vessels or the whole flotilla?
• The sentence beginning “Romeo and the other tinclads…” could stand to be split in half for readability
• “Vicksburg surrendered on July 4” seems quite abrupt. Perhaps just start the next paragraph with “Before the surrender of Vicksburg on July 4…”
• I took the liberty of simplifying the sentence starting “Following an August revision…” feel free to edit further if it doesn’t read well
• Is there consensus on including “USS” on the first mention of every new ship?
  • I don’t know if there’s a specific standard or not for this. I’ve always done this in the past in articles I’ve worked on. Although usually there’s been Confederate ships as well, but there aren’t any Confederate warships mentioned in this article. Do you think it would read better if I ommitted this in all but the first instance for lists of ships like “that also included the tinclads USS Exchange, Marmora, USS Prairie Bird, and Petrel.”? Hog Farm _Talk 02:45, 30 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  That was where I saw it that seemed a bit odd, I think it’s implied that they’re all USS with the “tinclad” descriptor and the prefix can be omitted there Fritzmann (message me) 07:22, 30 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• “Owen did not approve of Baldwin’s handling of this situation” this surprised me, is there a reason for that? It seems like both rescues of the civilian craft went off just fine
  • Reading back through Owen’s report, it looks like this is more a general disapproval of Baldwin’s overall job performance than this specific incident. As the secondary sources aren’t illuminating for this and I was rely on quoting from Owen’s report, I’ve just cut the sentence Hog Farm _Talk 02:45, 30 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• “By April and May…” same critique of this sentence as the one in the lead
• Would it make sense to put her civilian service in a dedicated subsection? That feels like a rather major delineation to me but I’m not sure of the convention

Thanks for your work. Please note this review was based on quality of prose and writing only; I did not assess referencing or evaluate broadness, but from my read the article seems to cover all the known facets of the ship’s life quite well. Please drop me a ping once you’ve addressed my nitpicks! Fritzmann (message me) 11:29, 29 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Fritzmann2002: – Thank you for the review! I’ve replied to your comments as best as I can. Hog Farm _Talk 02:45, 30 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I appreciate the quick and thorough response, I’m quite happy to support on prose! I do still think that the civilian career should be separated in its own section, but that’s a matter of personal taste. Thanks again for an excellent article on the US Navy! Fritzmann (message me) 07:25, 30 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

A few from me, mostly prose nitpicks. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 12:01, 30 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• After this repairs were completed: “these repairs were” or “this repair was”.
• thin metal armor for protection: could cut for protection — calling something armor implies that purpose.
• Some of these civilian ships were converted into tinclad warships, a process that involved building a wooden casemate[a] and then at least partially covering it with thin metal armor for protection, reinforcing certain internal structures, removing the existing pilothouse and installing a new armored one, adding cannons as armament, and generally removing the texas (a structure used for crew housing not found on all steamboats). This is a pretty monstrously long sentence. Suggest splitting in two — perhaps first talk about what they took out, and then what they put on in its place?
• at a cost of $17,459 (equivalent to $550,000 in 2024): match the number of significant figures here.
  • I don’t know that I agree with this. I think it’s important to use the exact 1860s cost value since we have it, but these 1862 –> 2024 inflation conversion values are inherently an estimate, and I think that anything more exact than what’s currently presented would be false precision. Hog Farm _Talk 02:37, 1 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Happy with that. Better to err in this direction than the other. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 15:22, 1 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• 154 feet 2 inches (46.99 m): on the other hand, this is false precision, since 47.00m would also round to 154 ft 2 in (it’s 154′ 2.4″). Ditto 4 feet 6 inches (1.37 m), except now we have an extra sig fig. Would go with 47.0m and 1.4m respectively.
• Romeo was reported to have a speed of 5 miles per hour (8 km/h; 4 kn) when going upstream. We’re missing a word here: maximum speed? Cruising speed?
• against Confederate Fort Hindman in Arkansas.[: not “Confederate-held”, like Vicksburg?
  • In mind the difference is a pre-existing feature which was held by the Confederates at the time (Vicksburg) and then a feature constructed by the Confederates (Fort Hindman). But if you don’t think this is helpful I don’t have any objections to switching to Confederate-held here. Hog Farm _Talk 02:37, 1 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• the Union flotilla … ascended the White: not sure about the idiom here. At best it’s specialist.
• Baron de Kalb, Romeo, a loaded troop transport, and the tinclad USS Forest Rose continued upriver: to remove ambiguity, consider “Baron de Kalb and Romeo continued upriver with a loaded troop transport and the tinclad USS Forest Rose“.
• continued to Des Arc the next day and took prisoners, ammunition: something has dropped out here (I’m not sure you can “take” ammunition, so it’s a bit more than the word “and”).
• Marmora, who was also a sternwheel tinclad: I’m happy to allow “she” for ships, but I think we draw the line at “who”: “which”.
• clearing obstructions from Yazoo Pass: the Yazoo Pass?
• Moving through the waterways was difficult. Some of the vessels were damaged by thick vegetation that lined the waterways: lined the [river]banks, to avoid repetition?
• the fighting along the Fort Pemberton area: can you fight along an area — especially an area of a point? In the area along the Tallahatchie River?
  • Went with “around”. I could point to a number of attestations to “fighting along the …” but I agree that it doesn’t work when being used to refer to a specific point (Fort Pemberton). Hog Farm _Talk 02:53, 1 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• A Union infantry landing and assault was unsuccessful: two things, so were.
• small arms fire: compound modifier, so small-arms fire.

  That’s a general tendency in (esp. military) American English not to hyphenate compound modifiers, though, isn’t it? Looking at the DoD style guide, for instance, they have (p. 27) a list of specified hyphenated modifiers (on which “small arms” is not included). This implies a general rule not to hyphenate by default, rather than a specific exemption to hyphenation for “small-arms”. We have the opposite rule — hyphenate unless there is a specific reason not to do so for this case (MOS:HYPHEN). Put another way, a DoD publication would also not hyphenate any of the examples given as good hyphenations in MOS:HYPHEN, so we probably shouldn’t automatically follow them here. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 15:21, 1 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• After the Meridian campaign drew Confederate troops away from the Yazoo City area, the Union forces occupied the place on February 9: simply occupied it?
• On May 24, Confederate artillery under the command of Colonel Colton Greene[24] opened fire on the tinclad USS Curlew from the banks of the Mississippi River in Arkansas.[50]: not ideal to have a reference mid-sentence with no punctuation: better bundled at the end? See later On June 30, she was decommissioned[6] while stationed at Mound City, Illinois.
• Together, the two tinclads would escort the transport Nicholas Longworth downriver. Curlew had a machinery failure on the way, and was left behind. WP:INTOTHEWOULDS? Does “on the way” mean on the way to the rendezvous before the mission, or while underway on the mission itself?
• Romeo returned to Columbia for repairs. Confederate artillery also returned to Columbia — this doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. Who was controlling the place at the time?
• Parts of the article seem to fall into WP:PROSELINE: I noticed this particularly in the penultimate paragraph of “Later service”.
• During her time in military service, she had required $11,524.98 in repair costs. That seems remarkably precise. Is it a lot? Can we inflate it to show?
  • I’ve removed this sentence. The precision is because this was being taken from a postwar government report which tracked this as part of ship data. I haven’t seen a secondary source which presents this in context as to if this was a lot or a little or normal, so I’ve dropped this as largely meaningless. Hog Farm _Talk 15:20, 1 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• captained by J. Ham Throop; one George Throop was her clerk: The “one” seems a bit odd when we’ve had a whole lot of obscure and (presumably) otherwise unknown sailors and soldiers introduced throughout the article.
• Ship names need italics even in work titles: see the various primary sources cited in the biblio.
• Note: ISBN printed in book is 0-89029-516-3: this sticks out oddly. It breaks MOS:NOTE, most obviously. Is this simply a printing error — and if so, is it common to all printings? If so, we probably need to include this comment somehow, but I wonder if an EFN would be less obtrusive.

  Perhaps one for Wikipedia Talk:CS1, if not WT:FAC? I don’t want to “rule” unilaterally on it here, but I’m mindful that (as far as I can see) nobody has actually discussed it at all. I did run “0-89029-516-3” through ISBN search and it came up as invalid, so I’m not sure how much value there is to anyone in having it if it clearly wasn’t actually allocated to the book. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 15:16, 1 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Hyphens wanted in ISBN of Tomblin 2016.
• We should pick a lane on Roman versus Arabic numerals for volume numbers.

  Right, but then MOS:CONFORM/MOS:CONFORMTITLE surely applies: Formatting and other purely typographical elements of quoted text should be adapted to English Wikipedia’s conventions without comment, provided that doing so will not change or obscure meaning or intent of the text. These are alterations which make no difference when the text is read aloud … Generally, the guidelines on typographic conformity in quoted material also apply to titles of works. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 15:24, 1 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Lead

• “she cleared naval mines on the Yazoo River” → “she cleared the Yazoo River of naval mines”

A single suggestion for now. MSincccc (talk) 10:06, 1 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Construction and characteristics

• “civilian vessels for conversion into military warships” → “civilian vessels for conversion into warships”
• “a process that involved removing the existing pilothouse” → “a process that involved removing the pilothouse”

MSincccc (talk) 10:16, 1 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]