Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/S. A. Andrée's Arctic balloon expedition of 1897

S. A. Andrée's Arctic balloon expedition of 1897

Self-nomination, with many thanks to Johan Elisson who made the map. An unlikely tale from the heroic age of polar exploration, involving blinkered patriotism, chicanery, crazy technological optimism, the spirit of Jules Verne, and suffering. The peer review is here. Bishonen | ノート 00:28, 19 March 2006 (UTC).

• Most emphatically support for FA. A shining example of a Wikipedia article; very interesting, and indeed a poignant reminder of how idealist optimism can lead to such disastrous consequences. The prose is nicely set out, the article is clearly structured and defined, is well referenced, and presents an excellent summary of the subject in general. It's about the right length, too; it's got enough detail to make it a good read without it being too heavy. Indeed, it is perhaps one of the very best articles I have so far come across on Wikipedia - of course, I would have expected nothing less from Bishonen. :) --NicholasTurnbull | (talk) 01:07, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
• Strong Support. Everything from references to the wacky ttile is unimaginably good. RyanGerbil10 01:34, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
• Well, support. Extensive peer review. Great prose. Fantastic article. – Elisson • Talk 01:56, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
• Support. Well-written; a fascinating story that I had never heard of before Bishonen started working on it; the 1897 photos are an amazing, haunting time-capsule. Structure is very nice, references are plentiful and solid (if somewhat, what's the word? Swědïsh), and the length is quite appropriate to the topic. Wish-list item: a screenshot from Ingenjör Andrée's Luftfärd (Flight of the Eagle). —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 03:24, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
• Support Pretty good all around. Good prose, everything is referenced, I have read the article and looked at the references and can find nothing substantially wrong. A few minor gripes, it is perhaps ever-so-slightly overlong, but that can be addressed with pruning of minor redundancies (as I've already done on a small scale) rather than taking out any content. There are also some parts that could read a bit more clearly, for example the first part of the last paragraph of the "Promotion and fundraising" section. But overall it's quite nice already. --W.marsh 03:29, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
  • That paragraph you mention was a mess, I hadn't noticed how tortured it was. Please see if it works for you now. Bishonen | ノート 16:00, 19 March 2006 (UTC).
    • Yes, it looks better, thanks for checking it out. --W.marsh 00:26, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
• Support: One of the strongest FA's in a long time. The narrative itself is interesting, and the writing moves well, so the native interest of the events combines with a clear telling and appropriate amount of context. There are many ways to add, but each of these represents a sub-topic. The article is nearly a perfect example of how to tell the essentials, spare the extranneous, and yet achieve comprehensiveness. Geogre 04:14, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Well, you know, I like this article until I read this comment. Is this article in fact lacking detail, as Geogre suggests? Everyking 10:34, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
    • I could snow you, James, since nobody around here except me has read the sources, but I won't. There's an inordinate amount of detail in the diaries, and certainly I've selected, yes. There are high-colored anecdotes, mainly from Andrée, a practised diary-writer since childhood. "I was mending my underwear and the boys were cooking dinner when suddenly I noticed a polar bear staring into my eyes from a few inches away, through the slit in the tent. I never stopped sewing but merely said: 'Look, lads, dinner'. Frænkel grabbed his gun..." and so forth. Or: "Frænkel has invented an excellent new recipe for pancakes, using seals' blood as a coagulant. It's really good, much less nauseating than seal meat." :-) I could have filled a couple of screens with such illustrations of Andrée's rather determined cheerfulness and non-complainingness, even in a diary. Of course he had reason to believe posterity would read it and judge him by it, so it's a kind of interesting reflection of the stiff-upper-lip when-men-were-men culture of the time. But the page is on the outside of long enough for the subject as it is, and I'm dead against spinning off subarticles from such a very narrative article. I don't think readers would come trooping to say "fascinating" ever again if it was re-cast like that. :-( And now you're gonna oppose, aren't you? How about a deal: I'll add a paragraph about Strindberg's fiancée and Andrée's mistress, which I wrote earlier but removed for considerations of length. They're quite interesting, and relevant to the expedition. Any good? Bishonen | ノート 11:37, 23 March 2006 (UTC).
      • I don't want you to include great quantities of non-notable detail, I just want the topic to be covered thoroughly. I know that I tend to disagree with Geogre about what's significant, and so I get nervous when I read praise from him like above. And notice that I did in fact vote to support, and I read the article all the way through and liked it very much. Everyking 11:58, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
        • Sure. Thanks. I didn't mean to suggest you'd oppose unreasonably, just that I know how you feel about comprehensiveness, and there are a few things I would have liked to include. Also, it's a bit of a problem that few people here can review the sources, as pretty much all the good ones are in Swedish. Bishonen | ノート 12:15, 23 March 2006 (UTC).
  • I should clarify. I am the great expander. I usually think everything lacks context, and I see connections between things that other people think are irrelevant. I was praising Bishonen's article for not falling into the traps that I often fall into. For example, you could say, "Tell me more about nationalism," or "Tell me more about the Swedish Church's role," or "Tell me more about the newspapers," but all of that would be interesting and unnecessary. I thought Bishonene showed us all exactly the right line to walk between comprehensive and rambling, the necessary and the extranneous. Geogre 13:10, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
• Support of course. Great work. Looks like a speedy FA candidate to me. - Taxman ^Talk 04:51, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
• Support - I don't normally take the time to read through an entire FAC, but that was a very well written and interesting article. Has some excellent photographs in too. Could we get a photo of Ekholm? The sane one? - Hahnchen 05:22, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
  • I do have a good pic of Ekholm in a book, but when I let slip he didn't actually go on the expedition, the family tech was reluctant to break out the scanner. I'll try again, I can totally understand the story makes you want to look at a sane man. Bishonen | ノート 06:46, 19 March 2006 (UTC).
    • There is one at the SMHI website here. As he died in 1923, I assume it is old enough to be {{PD-Sweden}}-eligible. u p p l a n d 07:47, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
      • Mmm, thanks, Tups, but that portly white-haired gentleman looks an awfully incongruous candidate for Andrée's triple sleeping-bag anyway. I should get my photo scanned, it's from 1896 and has a more explorer-like look.
• Support. Excellent article. u p p l a n d 07:47, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
• Support Great article, minor suggestions I will make on the talk page. - FrancisTyers 09:57, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
• Support, Interesting and aesthetically pleasing. -Obli (Talk)^? 10:14, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
• Support. Per Taxman. Giano | talk 11:18, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
• Support, for all the reasons above and then some. Great tale, well told. KillerChihuahua^?!? 11:46, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
• Support Excellent article on a fascinating topic Bwithh 16:49, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
• Support, however, I have one concern: would it be possible to decrease the size of the lead image? At least on this monitor, it is very large and shoves the text toward the left side of the screen. —Eternal Equinox | talk 17:56, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
  • It's unusually wide, I know, but I'm a little reluctant to change it, as the image is IMO very effective and striking, and emsmallening it will have bad consequences for the way most users see it, which are to do with its shape and composition. But if you mean there's text there that you actually can't see, I must of course do something. The image has been at original size so far—not thumbed—which means 439 px wide. I've now changed it to 380. I hope that'll work for you and everybody else. Unless you're viewing it on a mobile phone screen... anyway. Anybody who now finds it entirely too small or too big, please let me know. Bishonen | ノート 22:02, 19 March 2006 (UTC).
    • It's better, thanks. —Eternal Equinox | talk 00:24, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
• Support thoroughly encyclopedic in presentation and a good tale well told. Durova 06:37, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
• Object. No really major quibbles, but still worthy of attention:
  • The lead is too long and detailed. It introduces very specific details which I don't find appropriate for any lead, even if they belong in the main body of the article.
  • The image syntax is slightly awkward in places. I suggest removing a pic or two where they're bunched together and I recommend presenting the pictures of all three members of the expedition next to one another.
  • My favorite; footnotes. They're somewhat gratituitous to me. Note 7 establishes that the entire section is based on Lundström pg. 19-44, but the section contains an additional 5 notes, three of which refer to the pages alrady specified in 7. Pretty much the same goes for note 17-21. 17 states that all info is from Lundström pg. 73-114 "unless stated otherwise" and then goes on to repeat itself. Also consider whether it's really necessary to apply footnotes to statements like the number of holes in the balloons (15) or that Strindberg was good with cameras (13); they don't strike me as being either controversial or easily contested. (Disregard this particular critique if the footnotes are meant to cover entire paragraphs.) I'm also somewhat skeptical to leads containing any footnotes, since they're supposed to be summaries.

Otherwise a very good article. Well-balanced in the amount of detail and very well-written.

Peter ^Isotalo 17:21, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Responses:

1. The Lead: You may well be right. I've removed a few specifics. I think beyond that is really a matter of taste, though. For myself I like it the way it is now, on the principle that "some consideration should be given to creating interest in reading the whole article" (WP:LEAD). If all colorful or ambience-generating details are removed from the Lead, it's my feeling that it won't create any interest. But that's certainly a subjective opinion. I expect equally or more compelling arguments could be made for a more austere intro.
2. Images bunched together? Probably it looks different on different screens, it usually does. I don't have the expertise to fix image issues for any other screen than mine, where it looks good.
3. I agree about footnotes in Leads, I'm against them. But there was rioting in the streets the last time I tried to get out of having them on a FAC— The Country Wife, I think it was. I can't take on the footnote moguls singlehandedly on this issue, and altogether I don't want to get sucked into the mathmos ("a seething lake of evil slime beneath the city Sogo") of MOS debates. I might never write an article again.
4. Your other footnote remarks are, I don't know how to put this—they're wrong. See, the "covering" notes at the beginning of paragraphs—you mention 7 and 17—will necessarily be to a rather long page range, and therefore it sometimes needs complementing. For instance, the statement in note 17 that "The information in the 1897 section comes from Lundström, pp. 73–114, unless otherwise indicated" isn't specific enough for all the claims in the text that need referencing. Thus, Lundström says on p. 81 that the balloon careened wildly between sailing high and nearly crashing. Rather than sending the reader chasing this down somewhere on pp. 73—114, I give him/her the page reference "P. 81" in a separate note. All the examples you mention are of this kind. It's just not the case that they merely "repeat themselves". Where they're to the source that's already been mentioned, they add specificity, and where they're not, of course they're all the more needed. Or was your point that it's my covering notes that are redundant? They are the reason I have far fewer notes than the usual "well-referenced" FA of comparable length, you know: they save the need for many a specific note, which I'm as keen to do as you. Perhaps you might feel differently about this if you looked up my references in Lundström's book. The information that I use isn't at all easy to locate without my notes (all of them). There's no index. I've in fact spent some time trying (in vain) to convince Taxman that we don't need page references at all to sources that possess good indexes, so I feel rather miscast as a devotee of redundant apparatus and decorative footnotes.

I don't quite know what to say about the things you think don't need references. No, it's not widely known that Strindberg constructed his own cameras, and I haven't seen the 8 million holes mentioned anywhere else. Bishonen | ノート 18:23, 21 March 2006 (UTC).

My emphasis was on the level of footnote detail, not the obscurity of the individual details. They just strike me as things that couldn't be fought over by any reasonable editor. Or at least not by anyone who would ever bother to acquire the book.

Comments stricken.

Peter ^Isotalo 20:57, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

• Support well written, Scoo 19:14, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
• Comment- two issues about dates. (1), some dates like "In 1893 he" lack a comma, while in others like "On July 11, in a steady wind" there is a comma. They all should be changed to having a comma or not. (2), per WP:CONTEXT, years with full dates should be linked. Thanks, AndyZ 20:45, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Oh, c'mon! "In 1893 he bought his own balloon" and "On July 11, in a steady wind from the south-west, the top of the plank hangar was dismantled" are utterly different cases. I will not chop them to fit on the bed of Procrustes, sorry. Bishonen | ノート 22:28, 20 March 2006 (UTC).

WP:CONTEXT makes it clear that full-date linking is optional: many don't care for the way Wikimedia has implemented date preferences, since turning them into links has the unfortunate side-effect of... turning them into links. As for the commas, well, look: it's written without commas after short introductory date clauses; the comma after July 11 isn't a comma after July 11: it's one of a pair of commas delineating a subordinate clause that follows. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 22:54, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

A comma offsets an introductory or initial adverbial phrase. This rule, however, is optional in the US and fading in the UK. (E.g. American grammars are beginning to teach it as an option.) The question is whether the phrase is an introductory adverbial or an adverbial that is part of the verb clause (in other words, how much is it functioning as optional information of context and how much is it a part of the verb that follows). Bishonen's non-offset adverbials are not introductory. Still, it is good that people know this rule -- it's just that it's a bit complex in practice. Geogre 15:22, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

I find historical articles in which every other sentence starts "In xxxx, ..." a little turgid; rather than prolonging this fascinating grammatical debate, my recent copyedit has rephrased some of them (including this one). -- ALoan (Talk) 15:34, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

• Support what is so great about this page? it exists! Malomeat 05:15, 21 March 2006 (UTC)Malomeat

What do you mean? —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 05:20, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

I think this was praise (this page is great because it exists). -- ALoan (Talk) 15:34, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

• Support - Interesting read, very well sourced and referenced, no POV-ness; I really enjoyed the article. TheImpossibleMan 06:40, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
• Support. Excellent article, great pics, comprehensive notes. Kafziel 14:09, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
• Support. Excellent. (Disclosure: I have done a light copyedit which may have fixed AndyZ's comment.) I think the lead is entirely commensurate with the article: it sets the scene for a relatively obscure footnote of history. The "image syntax" and footnotes look fine to me. -- ALoan (Talk) 14:18, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Thank you. I have to say I was sad to see the images now so small. :-( Especially the (formerly) haunting Lead image. Did it look bad on your screen the way it was, at 380 px, or take up too much space? For images with somewhat long captions, the captions are now bigger than the images, IMO an uncomely sight. :-( Cui bono? Does the cool North Pole boardgame on your screen look better shrunken and illegible, or where's the advantage? Bishonen | ノート 17:37, 21 March 2006 (UTC).
    • Did I make any images much smaller? I think I made some bigger too. Most of my image tweaks were just to bring in some consistency - I could see no reason why the images were getting bigger and smaller all the time: it just looked messy to me. YMMV. I think made the lead image a bit smaller (380px to 350px). The issue with large images is that the lead image can blot out the text for people with narrow screens, particularly 800x600 (given sidebars, etc). AFAIK, the featured article with the largest lead image is National parks of England and Wales, which is 400px, which is a little hard to justify, but the image is 'lovely. :) -- ALoan (Talk) 22:20, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
• Object until this thumbnail-fetish is cured. The images are the most striking and incredible part of the article, they should be allowed to shine. Since they are black-and-white it's especially important to have them a decent size. Everything else is excellent. Haukur 09:37, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
  • You think all the images are too small? Or are there some in particular? Image:Andree.Svea.jpg is the only one on my monitor that seems like it should reasonably be bigger, but then I run at a fairly-low 1024x768 resolution. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 16:21, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
    • All right, I enlarged that one. Personally I like large images. To be entirely honest I was trying to provide some counterweight to the small-image fans above :). Support. Haukur 16:38, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
      • Please, not that one! It's the only single low-quality image in the article (but I think it's funny, so I like having it in there). That's the reason I had it small. Don't you think it becomes less, rather than more, clear when embiggened? Thank you for wanting to allow this amazing pictorial material to shine. I've made the rest a bit bigger. :-) And Nils Gustaf Ekholm can now be seen looking sane in a great (IMO) studio portrait of the whole 1896 balloon crew, do take a look. :-) Bishonen | ノート 23:54, 22 March 2006 (UTC).
• Support, well done for the hard work put in. --Terence Ong 11:39, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
• Support This article is top-notch. I have watched the diligent effort by the major contributors to this article and am impressed with their drive to do the best job they could. I can't think of any thing it may need to make it better.--MONGO 13:07, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
• Support. You have written one of my favorite articles. Seriously awesome!— L1AM (talk) 00:08, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

• Strong Support Never heard of the event, but after reading that article I feel enlightened. Sean WI 04:29, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
• Support; this is very good. Everyking 10:32, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Could more on their deaths be added? I was looking over this again, and noticed that's one of the most important and interesting parts of the story, but there's only one paragraph on the cause(s) of death. The question that springs to my mind is, if it was trichinosis, it wouldn't be likely to kill them all within the same short span of time, would it? It sounds like a lot of theories have been put forward about the cause, so it seems like it deserves to be discussed at greater length. Everyking 07:27, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
    • I've added a bit more. Several problems with the trichinosis theory have been raised since it was proposed in the 1950s, even though it's still the favored explanation. The cause of death is the only aspect of the expedition that people have found to disagree about, since everything else is so amply documented, so I guess it deserves more discussion for that reason alone. I hope I haven't given Kjellström's common-sense theory (=that they just died already, and wouldn't you have?) too much prominence. I admit I like it. Bishonen | ノート 08:23, 25 March 2006 (UTC).
• Support. Brilliant! Kosebamse 09:21, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
• Comment - There are a LOT of pictures in that article. You may want to cut a few out. TheImpossibleMan 04:49, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

  Please not. The historical pictures are an i ntegral part of the article and should not be reduced in number. Kosebamse 06:47, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

  I see that image galleries in articles are so very deprecated that it won't be of any use my suggesting a gallery to resolve the viewpoints above, either. Oh, well. I do think there should be as many of the most relevant 1890s photos as possible (and I'm heart-broken that I can't have a few of the presumably copyright ones from 1930 too, as those are also time-capsules, notably the state funeral procession in Stockholm), but if the images are starting to make the text irritatingly snaking to read at some resolutions, that of course won't do, either. Is that the problem, TheImpossibleMan, or is your objection aesthetic? Bishonen talk 09:38, 26 March 2006 (UTC).

  No, don't remove any images. But I think galleries are getting reprecated (if there is a word like that) so an additional gallery could be a fine addition eventually. In any case, according to the {{PD-Sweden}} template, photos published in Sweden before July 1, 1944 are in the PD, but I don't know what that is based on exactly. u p p l a n d 09:48, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

  "... according to the copyright law of July 1, 1994, of Sweden, all photographs of Swedish origin published prior to July 1, 1944 are assumed public domain. This applies worldwide." Great Scott! Where's that scanner?? Bishonen talk 09:58, 26 March 2006 (UTC).

  The law is here, but I can't tell why it is supposed to be 1944. It talks about "Rätten enligt första stycket gäller till dess femtio år har förflutit efter det år då bilden framställdes", which would appear to be 50 years from the present time, which would now put photos from as late as 1956 in in the public domain. But perhaps it depends on the artistic value of the image, however that is judged? I'm sure there is something written about this somewhere in normal Human Swedish. u p p l a n d 10:31, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

  P.S. I guess it can be deduced from the "Övergångsbestämmelser" listed under "Ändring 1994:190" here. u p p l a n d 10:37, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

• Minor object. Impressive work, but the article needs more ilinks. For example, lead should ilink words like Sweden, Russia, race to reach the North Pole, drag-rope steering technique, Paris, optimism - that's just after a cursory glance of the first two paras.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 00:43, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
  • I disagree. Sweden, Russia, and Paris: maybe. It's a matter of style preference, I think. (But everybody probably does know what Sweden, Russia, and Paris are, and linking to their main articles is unlikely to actually serve a useful purpose from an article like this one.) Drag-rope steering technique is likely to be a red link... forever? Linking optimism would just be to provide a dictionary definition of a word... exactly what links shouldn't be for. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 01:13, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

  [edit conflict; thanks, Bunchofgrapes.] I expect I can link a few more (in the whole article), but on the whole I just don't agree, either. Paris and optimism? I've followed the Make only links relevant to the context principle, and I can't believe anybody will want to go off to look at a half full/half empty glass in order to better understand S. A. Andrée's optimistic mindset, or to look even cursorily at the vast Paris article merely because his balloon was made there. These would be distracting low-value links IMO. Sweden is linked in the first sentence, from the form Swedish. But your suggestion of linking drag-rope steering technique raises an interesting matter of principle that's probably relevant to other concepts in the article as well. See, I would have to write a stub for it, which would not conceivably, ever, be relevant to anything except this article, because drag ropes were a wrong-headed invention by Andrée that no one else ever used. They're an obscure dead end in the history of ballooning, and unique to this story. Therefore I think they need to be fully defined in this article (which they are, below), rather than linked to. I mean, "drag-rope steering technique" is a whole long phrase (which I made up), can you see anybody typing it into the Search field? They wouldn't, they would only reach it via this article, and find that it only contained duplicated information from this article. So, well, I know the article is lightly wikilinked, but there are reasons for it. I don't want to link just to make it more blue. (Or more red.) Bishonen talk 01:33, 27 March 2006 (UTC).

  I agree that some of those are dispuateble. But there are also those that definetly should be linked, like race to the North Pole or polar expedition (and those definetly deserve a stubs and would be linked from quite a few articles, I believe). One more issue: shouldn't there be a section on discovery of the expedition remains?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 04:03, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

  I added a few links (Russia, Paris, etc) in my light copyedit by later editors removed them again. I would link them, but I agree that it is a matter of style. -- ALoan (Talk) 11:50, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

  I think it is. Thanks, ALoan. The article got Featured a few hours ago, so this is now an archive, I guess; I've replied to Piotrus on his own page. Bishonen talk 12:41, 27 March 2006 (UTC).