Template:Did you know nominations/The Battle of Palmdale

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Allen3 ^talk 21:09, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

Battle of Palmdale

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... that US Air Force interceptors inadvertently set fire to a thousand acres in the Battle of Palmdale?

ALT1: ... that missiles from USAF fighter planes started dozens of fires in the Battle of Palmdale?

Created by Samf4u (talk). Self nominated at 19:59, 14 February 2015 (UTC).

The article was actually moved from Sam4u's sandbox to article space on Jan. 24, but it wasn't nominated here until Feb. 14; I'm assuming this is beyond the acceptable date limit. If not, this is the creator/nominator's first DYK, so no QPQ would be needed. The article is long enough, at 7622 B (1275 words) "readable prose size" on the day it was moved. It is neutral and cites sources. However, some of the sources are questionable and there is considerable evidence of plagiarism or very close paraphrasing that would need to be resolved before this could be acceptable as a DYK. Some examples:

Article: According to one witness, a rocket skipped through Placerita Canyon, leaving a string of fires near Oak of the Golden Dream Park. Placerita Canyon was the location of the Indian Oil Co., and several of its oil sumps were ignited and 100 acres of brush burned. The blazes in the canyon also got within 100 yards of the Bermite Powder Co. explosives plant.
Source: According to one witness, one rocket skipped through Placerita Canyon, leaving a string of fires near Oak of the Golden Dream Park," Merlin said. Placerita Canyon also was the location of the Indian Oil Co., and several of its oil sumps were ignited. The blazes in the canyon also at one point threatened to reach the Bermite Powder Co. explosives plant, he said.

Article: Larry Kempton was driving west on Palmdale Boulevard with his mother in the passenger seat when a rocket exploded on the street in front of him. Fragments shredded his left front tire and put 17 holes in his radiator, hood, windshield and firewall.
Source: Kempton, with his mother Bernice in the passenger seat, was driving west on Palmdale Boulevard just west of 10th Street West when a rocket exploded on the street in front of his car, the newspaper reported. Fragments from the explosion shredded Kempton’s left front tire and put 17 holes in his radiator, hood and windshield.

MeegsC (talk) 04:34, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

New reviewer needed to complete nomination review. The close paraphrasing issues have been discussed on Samf4u's and Nikkimaria's talk pages, and the resulting edits appear to have successfully dealt with the issues. BlueMoonset (talk) 21:15, 14 March 2015 (UTC)
- Hook and length verified. The close paraphrasing issues have been dealt with and this is an interesting, well-developed article about a very niche topic. I found it curious that this is referred to as a "battle" (corroborated by sources) despite no enemy units being involved. You may wish to explicitly note this at some point, lest the careless reader come away with the impression that California was subject to an air raid in 1956. I am willing to excuse the late nomination this time (if no one else has objections) as the author has been very responsive to concerns and the article was expanded within the correct timeframe, but in the future, please remember to nominate articles seven days after they are created/expanded. Astro interest (talk) 18:08, 18 March 2015 (UTC)