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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by David Fuchs via FACBot (talk) 26 March 2024 [1].

Dorothy Olsen

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Nominator(s): RoySmith (talk) 17:20, 16 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This article is about Dorothy Olsen, who flew military planes during World War II as a civilian member of the Women Airforce Service Pilots, ferrying newly built fighters and bombers from their factories where they were built to their embarkation points to Europe or Russia. I am grateful to UndercoverClassicist for their extensive comments at Talk:Dorothy Olsen and Wikipedia:Peer review/Dorothy Olsen/archive1. RoySmith (talk) 17:20, 16 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Kusma

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Planning to review. —Kusma (talk) 23:34, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  • Did you see this source? There are a few nice anecdotes in there that are not yet in the article.
    • I did see that. It's more about WASPs in general; was there some specific item that you think would be useful to add?
      • I'm not sure. It is mostly cute anecdotes:
        • "At the state fair in Salem during the Great Depression, she saw a biplane and spent every cent of the money she had earned picking hops to pay for a ride."
        • "Her daredevil stunts once caused damage to a plane’s front-wheel cowling." because she had been "hanging upside down at the time".
      • Including some of that would add further colour, but certainly isn't necessary.
  • Lead: clarify that she preferred the P-51 to the P-38 even if she preferred that one over bombers.
  • 40hp Taylorcraft: is that a Taylorcraft B?
    • I don't believe I've seen anything which specified the exact model.
      • I think the "40hp" was supposed to specify it; not sure whether that uniquely identifies the model.
  • WASPs: "Her training began in February 1943, at Houston Municipal Field [..] along with half of her class". Not a fan of the "along" here. Maybe "She begain training in February 1943. Half of her class trained at Houston Municipal Field, the other half ..."?
  • "Olsen initially hated her training" do we know why?
  • "She encountered difficulties when her fiancé died" do we know anything at all about him or how long they had been engaged? (Did he do anything other than inconvenience her by dying at an inopportune moment?)
    • Nothing that I've found.
  • "civilian aviation was grounded during World War II" really? Maybe general aviation was, but I think Delta and a few other airlines were operating scheduled civilian flights during WWII.
    • Hmmm, I'm unsure what to do here. You're probably right, but the source doesn't say that specifically. I've made it "civilian general aviation", which I think is reasonable even if not strictly supported by the source.
      • The Chinook Observer perhaps isn't the greatest source for the history of general aviation during WW2, so it may be better to cite this from elsewhere.
        • I've done a bit of hunting and haven't found anything definitive about general aviation being grounded during WW-II. The best I've found is a vague and unsourced statement in History of the Civil Air Patrol#World War II: On 8 December 1941, all civil aircraft, with the exception of airliners, were grounded. This ban was lifted two days later (with the exception of the entire United States West Coast) and things went more or less back to normal I'll keep looking, but for now I've put a more generic statement in the article.
  • "delivering brand new planes from the factory and was one of only 12 women certified for night flight" maybe better not to connect these separate facts in one sentence.
  • There is a slight abundance of "woulds" in this section.
    • I got rid of some of them.

Nice article overall, and she seems cool (I like the photo of her as an old lady with sunglasses). I guess her life outside the WASP episode is so unremarkable that its short treatment does not indicate a lack of comprehensiveness. —Kusma (talk) 23:36, 22 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Other than as noted, I think I've addressed all of your comments. RoySmith (talk) 00:32, 23 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed you have. My remaining comments are not showstoppers, happy to support. —Kusma (talk) 09:23, 23 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Volcanoguy

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  • She grew up on her family's farm in Oregon. Link Oregon?
  • After training in Texas. Link Texas?
  • After the war, Olsen retired from flying and moved to Washington state. Washington state can be changed to Washington by linking it to Washington (state).
  • Dorothy Eleanor Olsen was born in Woodburn, near Portland, Oregon. Link Portland?
  • Floyd Gibbons's biography of World War I. Link World War I?
  • In a 2022 interview, she recollected crowded housing, insects, and poor weather. The interview was done in 2010 not 2022; Olsen died in 2019.
  • Opportunity to keep women pilots flying during World War II. World War II should be linked in introduction first.

That's it for now. Comments welcomed FAC here. Volcanoguy 19:44, 26 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed all those, thanks. RoySmith (talk) 22:32, 26 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Volcanoguy, is there any more to come? Thanks. Gog the Mild (talk) 21:59, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
No there isn't unfortunately. I was going to review more and eventually support this article but after RoySmith's withdrawal on my own FAC I've decided to not support or oppose this on either. Volcanoguy 22:23, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Grungaloo

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Marking my spot, will post comments shortly. grungaloo (talk) 19:01, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Source review

  • Ref 1 - all uses good
  • Ref 2/3 - No access so not checked
    • There's links in the refs to Internet Archive if you want to look at those.
      • Ooh, thanks!
  • Ref 2- all uses good
  • Ref 3 - all uses good
  • Ref 4 - good
  • Ref 5 - One issue
    • [b] - I don't see where "Woodburn Flying Club " is mentioned, I only see a vague "club" reference. Also, it seems that this sentence is actually a quote from her so I'd make sure that's clear in the prose.
      • fixed.
  • Ref 6 - all uses good
  • Ref 7 - good
  • Ref 8 - You cite page 99 inline at one point, but the citation at the bottom only lists pages 102-103. usage is good otherwise
  • Ref 9 - good
  • Ref 10 - Small issue
    • [B] - It's called the Sixth Ferrying Group personnel book in the text, but the source says it's a yearbook, I'd suggest to use yearbook.
      • Fixed
  • Ref 11 - good
  • Ref 12 - good
  • Ref 13 - good
  • Ref 14 - good
  • Ref 15 - Issue
    • [A] - I can't find anything in this sentence that this source verifies. I wasn't able to access the WaPo article, but if it covers this off then I'd remove Ref 15 on this sentence.
  • Ref 16 - good, it's only sourcing Jennings' title right?
    • Yeah. I messed up the ref mapping when I inserted that. Fixed now.
  • Ref 17 - Can't validate, AGF that the WaPo article covers this.
  • Ref 18 - good
  • Ref 19 - good

The sources mostly appear to be from good WP:RS (WaPo, NYT, other recognized news outlets). For those I couldn't access, I'm AGF that they check out considering everything else does (minus some nitpicks). The only ones that stuck out to me are the few that are mostly interviews, namely Ref 6. Wikipedia:Interviews is the closest guidance I found, but even if considered a primary source I think it's still good to use. It's mostly her recollections of her life, so pretty uncontroversial stuff. Overall I'd say the source are good minus those few issues I point out above. grungaloo (talk) 22:45, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Prose comments

  • A petite woman - Ref 1 lists her starting weight (92 lbs), I'd consider replacing this with the actual numbers.
    • If you believe the source, she managed to put on 8 lbs to get form 92 to 100 in a week. I doubt that's physically possible, so I'm inclined to think the 92 isn't correct, so safer going with the vaguer "petite", I think.
      • Fair rationale. I'd maybe consider a word other than "petite" though. IMO it feels a bit sexist although I'm sure this is not the intent - we don't use this term to describe men so why use it with women? Maybe try something more factual like "Olsen did not meet the 100lb minimum weight upon entry to the program, so she under embarked on..." or something like that.
        • I changed it to "small", which is guess is more gender neutral.
  • There were more than 25,000 applicants to the program, of which 1,879 were accepted and 1,074 graduated; Olsen was one of 152 students in class 43-4. - This is missing a source. It seems like Ref 8 and Ref 1 cover it though.
    • Hmmm, unless I'm missing something, this sentence and the next few are all cited to ref 8.
      • Ok yeah, I think I got confused during the read. On second look it checks out.
  • Dorothy Eleanor Olsen was born in Woodburn, near Portland, Oregon, on July 10, 1916, to Ralph and Frances (Zimmering) Kocher, and grew up on the family's small farm.[ - there's a lot of commas here, stylistically I think it would look better broken up into two sentences - one for where/when she was born, another about parents/farm?
    • Done (not in exactly that way, but split into two sentences).
  • She encountered difficulties when her fiancé died; taking time off to attend his funeral put her behind the rest of her class. - I think this semicolon should be a comma since the second clause isn't a complete sentence on its own.
    • What comes after is taking time off to attend his funeral put her behind the rest of her class. That seems like a sentence to me, but if you feel strongly about this, I'll change it.
      • On a re-read you're right, the semicolon is good.
  • a practice shared by other WASPs. - This isn't sourced as far as I can tell.
    • The WaPo article (ref 2) says, "Sometimes, before sending a plane off to combat, a WASP would leave a note for its next pilot"
      • I guess it's a stylistic preference of mine then, so not something that would prevent support. IMO having a citation near the end of the sentence but leaving the tail end without one makes it seem like that tail is uncited. Even though the next cite does cover it, it's not immediately evident that that cite covers the tail end of the previous sentence as well. You could consider moving the tail into the next sentence instead, or maybe putting ref 2/3 at the end of the first sentence instead. Again, this is a stylistic preference so no need to change it if you'd prefer not to.
        • I think you're right. This is probably one of those things that's "technically correct, but could be better", so I did that.

That's all I've got. Looks pretty good! grungaloo (talk) 22:45, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Support - changes look good. grungaloo (talk) 00:18, 29 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Support by Pendright

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Placeholder - back soon! Pendright (talk) 22:36, 1 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Lead'

  • Dorothy Eleanor Olsen (née Kocher; July 10, 1916 – July 23, 2019) was an American aircraft pilot and member of the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs) in World War II. She grew up on her family's farm in Oregon, developing an interest in aviation at a young age. She earned her private pilot's license in 1939, when it was unusual for women to be pilots.
Woodburn, Oregon would be more reader friendly
  • When the United States entered the war, she joined the WASPs where she was a civilian employee of the military.
  • The U.S. declared war on Japan and Germany on December 11, 1941, but the WASP was not formed as such until August 1943 -> Change the introductory phrase accordingly
  • a civilian employee of the military -> the Department of Defense (and other sources) confirm that the WASP members were United States federal civil service employees who were attached to the United States Army Air Forces. https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/684700/wasps-were-pioneers-for-female-pilots-of-today-tomotrow/
  • After training in Texas, she was assigned to the Sixth Ferrying Group in Long Beach, California where she worked ferrying new aircraft to airbases from the factories where they were built.
  • Add a comma after California
  • Consider: ferrying new aircraft from factories where they were bulit to U.S. airbases -> gets rid of one where.
  • After the war, Olsen retired from flying and moved to Washington, where she raised a family and lived for the rest of her life.
Funny you should mention that. A previous reviewer asked me to drop the "state", but I've put it back now.
  • Drop the comma after Washington
  • where she "married and"
  • In 2009, she was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal honoring her service during the war.
The medal was awarded to the WASP and she and others were the recipients of it.
Most of the sources say "awarded". In the body have "along with her fellow WASPs", but I think the shorter form is fine for the lead.
  • Olsen died in 2019, at the age of 103.
Drop the comma after 2019

Early life

  • Dorothy Eleanor Olsen (née Kocher; July 10, 1916 – July 23, 2019) was an American aircraft pilot and member of the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs) in World War II.
  • and " a" member of
  • "during" WWII
  • She grew up on her family's farm in Oregon, developing an interest in aviation at a young age.
  • Could we beef this up a bit more: Did she attend local schools - what high school did she graduate from and when; was she active in school clubs or sports?
None of the sources I've seen give any of those details.
  • What did she do between high school graduation and getting her pilots lic.?
  • She decided she wanted to fly airplanes when she was eight, after reading The Red Knight of Germany, Floyd Gibbons's biography of World War I flying ace Manfred von Richthofen.
  • In the first nine words of this sentence, the word she is used three time?
  • Drop the comma after eight
  • Her introduction to flight was when she took a biplane ride at a state fair, which inspired her to take flying lessons;[2][3] the cost of the flight reportedly used her entire savings.[4]
This sentence has four pronouns referring to Olsen without nemtioning her proper name -> Suggest starting the sentence with her proper name and rephrasing to drop at least one pronoun

WASPs

  • Snce the Olsen story revolves around the WASP, why not tell readers a bit about this organization such as - it was formed by the merging of two similar orgaizations and who were the envolved principals, how many miles did it collectively fly, how much were members paid, number of fatalities etc.
  • Olsen joined the Woman Airforce Service PIlots (WASPs) in 1943 when the program was created; this was an organization of women pilots who took non-combat flying jobs as civilian employees of the military.
  • How about a little context here: how did Olsen learn the WASP was recruiting, where did she sign up, how much was she to be paid per month etc?
  • PIlots -> sp
  • non-combat -> noncombatan?
  • Initial training was in the Fairchild PT-19, progressing to the Vultee BT-13, the North American AT-6, and finally to the twin-engine Beechcraft AT-11.[6]: time index 15:10 
  • Drop the first comma & add and then
  • time index 15:10?
I don't know what you're asking here.
  • Olsen initially hated her training, but stayed with the program to avoid the embarrassment of dropping out;[8] in a 2010 interview, she recollected crowded housing, insects, and poor weather which made the conditions "pretty primitive".[6]: time index 59:54 
  • but "she" stayed
  • Change which to that
  • Despite being sick with a cold on her return, she passed a checkride which included aerobatic maneuvers, allowing her to stay with her class although she struggled to catch up.[8]
Change which to that
  • She graduated on August 7, 1943[2][8] and was assigned to the Sixth Ferrying Group in Long Beach, California.[10]
Add a comma after 1943
  • Olsen flew 61 missions for the U.S. Army Air Corps, delivering brand new planes from the factory.
According to this link, U.S. Army Air Corps, the USAAC became the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) on 20 June 1941.
Is the word "brand" necessary?
It's what's in the source. I felt it was important to emphasize how new they were. I've added the "less than a half hour" bit from the source to clarify this.
  • A typical assignment was to ferry a P-38 or P-51 from Long Beach to Newark, New Jersey, then get a military transport flight to Niagra Falls, New York, where she would pick up a Bell P-63 for delivery to Great Falls, Montana and then return to Long Beach for another trip.
  • A typical assignment "for Olsen" was
  • Add a comment after Montana
  • Niagra -> sp
  • pickup is one word
  • When the WASP program ended in 1944, the pilots were discharged at their home bases, with no transportation allowance to get back home.[3]
Add "but" after bases,

After the war

  • After the war, she married Harold W. Olsen of the Washington State Police Department, and moved to University Place, Washington.
and 'they' moved
  • Nerve damage from a dental procedure left her deaf for many years but at the age of 80, she received cochlear implants which restored her hearing.
  • Add a comma after years and drop the comma after 80
  • Change which to that

This is it for now - Pendright (talk) 22:21, 4 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the detailed comments. I think I've addressed them all in the article, or commented in-line for items I didn't change. Please let me know if I've missed anything. RoySmith (talk) 00:31, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, yeah, I've got a note to add a bit more background about the WASPs. I'll work on that. RoySmith (talk) 00:32, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I gotta love the writing in that DOD web site you pointed me to. "In an interview before her death..." Yeah, that's generally the best time to conduct interviews. RoySmith (talk) 01:17, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I've added some basic information about the history of the WASPs. RoySmith (talk) 02:12, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

All comments seem to be addressed - thank you! I support this nomination Pendright (talk) 16:37, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Support from Gog the Mild

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Recusing to review.

  • "When the war began". For many readers this will mean 1939, while I suspect you mean 1941. And did she join before the end of the year or was it 1942. It may be easier to mention Pearl Harbour and then give a specific date.
  • "of which 1,879 were accepted". "of which" or 'of whom'?
  • "her fiancé died". Any more detail on this? Ie, was he killed in combat?
  • Consider moving "Olsen never flew commercially after the war, and not at all after having children. She is quoted as saying, "Why would I want to fly a Cessna when I've flown a P-51?"[1][3]" to immediately after "... and a son, Kim."
  • After the war feels thin. Ie, was Olsen a full-time mother - would that be 'home maker' in modern American - prior to working with antiques? When did she marry, when were her children born? What did her husband do for a living, what did he do during the war, how did they meet?
  • Link "flyover". (To flypast.)
  • "Alta Thomas, Betty Dybbro, and Mary Jean Sturdevant." Do any of these have articles? If not, are any notable enough to merit a red link?
  • References: article titles - not book titles - should consistently be in sentence case. Regardless of how the original appears.

A smashing article - great work. Gog the Mild (talk) 03:44, 3 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I think I've made all the changes, please ping me if I missed anything. I didn't spot any refs I had mis-cased; was there one (or more!) in particular that you had in mind?

The question about Alta Thomas, Betty Dybbro, and Mary Jean Sturdevant is a tricky one. If you search for them and "WASP", you'll find some material. Largely the same kind of material I found for Olsen, but with a different name. Modulo some personal details, they all have pretty much the same story, as I suppose do the 1,070 other WASPs as well. If you were a woman with a pilot's license in the early 1940s, you were likely to be of the same personality type. So why did I pick Olsen to write about? Only because I saw her obituary in the New York Times and got hooked. If it's OK with you, I'm inclined to skip the redlinks.

Thanks again for the review and the kind words. RoySmith (talk) 16:34, 3 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

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Image licencing and placement seems OK to me. ALT text seems fine too but the file File:WASP Dorothy Kocher Olsen.JPG seems to have a faulty source. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 15:23, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Jo-Jo Eumerus Hmmm. Yeah, the URL on the commons page does seem to be flakey. It was timing out for me a little while ago, but now it's working (and redirecting to https://www.512aw.afrc.af.mil/News/Photos/igphoto/2000372466/mediaid/138235/). Could you give it another try? RoySmith (talk) 15:59, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Today it seems to work again. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 10:20, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

UC

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I did comment on this before, so relatively little to add UndercoverClassicist T·C 17:05, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  • I would link née on the first mention in the body, as well as the lead.
  • Per MOS:BIRTHDATE, people's dates should only be given in the first paragraph of the lead section, unless there's a compelling reason otherwise. I'd therefore remove them from the first paragraph of the body, especially as her birth date follows immediately. Come to think of it, I can't see what Dorothy Eleanor Olsen (née Kocher; July 10, 1916 – July 23, 2019) was an American aircraft pilot and a member of the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs) during World War II is really doing there -- this is a very lead-y sentence in the body.
  • Olsen decided she wanted to fly airplanes at the age of eight: better perhaps "at the age of eight, she decided...", as she presumably wanted to wait until she was a little older before actually getting in a plane.
  • earned her private pilot's license as a civilian: isn't as a civilian implied in private -- plus we haven't said that she's joined the WASPs yet, and the US isn't at war?
  • Reportedly one of only three women in the Portland area to have a private pilot's license, Olsen flew with the Woodburn Flying Club (she recalled being the only woman among 19 men -- per MOS:NUM, better if both or neither of these are in figures.
  • towing gliders, towing gunnery practice targets: towing gliders and gunnery practice targets?
  • Can we cite the footnotes -- e.g. Sources differ on the exact number, reporting either 1,830 or 1,879.: which sources report which number? Likewise the other two notes.
    • I have been unable to figure out how to include a citation inside of a {{efn}}. If you can show me how that works, I'd be happy to do it.
      • Try the {{refn|1=[citation]}} template -- does the same job as ref tags but works within other templates? UndercoverClassicist T·C 17:54, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
        • OK, I've switched from efn to refn. But I don't honestly think this is an improvement. All I've done is duplicated (painfully) the citation that's right there in the text next to the note. I don't see how this is useful. Also, I would give my candid opinion of how confusing the documentation for {{refn}} is, but I don't believe I can do that within the bounds of WP:CIVIL.
          • Sorry: I wasn't clear: I mean like this {{efn|This is a footnote.{{refn|This is a citation for that footnote}}}}. You can also use the |name= parameter on the refn tag so that it only generates a single footnote, linked twice, once from the text and once from the note. UndercoverClassicist T·C 20:23, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
            • I've gone back to my original style. I think it works well.
              • Having uncited footnotes (or indeed anything else) is a problem for me. Firstly, we have a WP:SYNTH problem: we have two footnotes saying "sources differ on...", for which the evidence base presumably is that the article cites two sources for each, which have different numbers. However, the plural of anecdote is not data, to use a cliché: we've suggested that there's some broad disagreement on this topic, which isn't supported by the sources we've provided. One way to solve this would be to say "Smith says X, while Jones says Y", and there I'd cite them both. More seriously, though, we have the claim Sources say she joined the WASPs but based on the dates it is more likely she joined the Women's Flying Training Detachment, which was later merged into the WASPs, which is uncited. Who says it's more likely that she joined the WFTD? Who are these "sources", and who is the implied additional, better source that allows us to discount them? This reads like OR at the moment: I'm sure it isn't, but we need to cite our sources to show that. UndercoverClassicist T·C 20:33, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
              I've added citations to two of these. I'm not sure what to do about the third ("more likely she joined the Women's Flying Training Detachment"). That statement basically is OR. I looked at all the sources and determined that despite what they say, it just can't be right. Not sure how to express that other than what I did. RoySmith (talk) 18:44, 14 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
              It's a tricky one, but we can't print OR. We can, however, not print something that we know to be untrue, even if another source says it. Why is it more likely that she joined the WFTD? UndercoverClassicist T·C 21:58, 14 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
              We have sources that say WASP didn't exist until (depending on which one you believe) July or August 1943. And another source which says she showed up for training in "mid-February 1943", at which point the WASP didn't exist yet. So, something doesn't jive. I think it's incumbent on us to at least alert the reader to this discrepancy. RoySmith (talk) 22:30, 14 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
              Regarding "not print something that we know to be untrue" if I followed that literally, I would be unable to say "Dorothy Olsen joined the WASPs", which would be silly. RoySmith (talk) 22:52, 14 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
              I think we just need to remove the note, then: we know that she did (eventually) become a member of the WASPs, and it's at least possible that this happened in 1943. I sympathise with what you're saying, but WP:OR is both policy and pillar -- there is simply no way that we can allow a "fact" in an FA that is based entirely on an editor's own research. If nobody has connected Olsen with the WFTD, we can't either. UndercoverClassicist T·C 07:28, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
              I have removed the note. RoySmith (talk) 14:39, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]


  • The Initial training: decap initial.
  • Olsen initially hated her training, but she stayed with the program to avoid the embarrassment of dropping out;: half of a long sentence: any reason not to use a full stop here?
  • WASP head Jackie Cochran: I'm never a fan of false titles, but this one is particularly unfortunate, and we should be formal about the name: suggest "Jacqueline Cochran, the director of the WASP". We'd hardly use "army head Ike Eisenhower" in the same way.
  • with less than a half hour on them: a little informal and perhaps unclear to some readers: suggest less than half an hour of flight time or similar.
  • In all the dictionaries I can find, pickup is a noun or an adjective: the verb is pick up.
@RoySmith: I stand corrected: The rue is When you need a noun or adjective, stick with the single-word pickup. When you're describing an action, use the two-word pick up as a verb. My apology! Pendright (talk) 00:35, 13 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm not totally sure of this one, but single-engine and twin-engine are compound modifiers, so unless HQRS differ, I would drop the hyphen when not using them attributively (so "the aircraft was twin engine" like "the revolver was double action".
  • After the war, she : I'd restate Olsen's name, as this is a new section.
    • I made it "Kocher" so as to avoid the odd-sounding "After the war, Olsen married Harold W. Olsen"

A person named in an article of which they are not the subject should be referred to by the name they used at the time being described. For example, Pope John Paul I was known as Albino Luciani before he was elevated to the papacy, so material about the time before he became pope should use that name. In some cases, it is helpful to the reader to clarify, e.g., Albino Luciani (later to become Pope John Paul I). The principle of avoiding anachronistic naming is also usually employed in the subject's own biography (including that of John Paul I), especially when the article is no longer a short stub.

UndercoverClassicist T·C 14:02, 13 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@UndercoverClassicist I've been cogitating on this for a while and I'm unsure where I want to go with it. I get what MOS:NAME is saying, but I think referring to the same person by two different names in one article is confusing. As a good example, take this paragraph from the lead, post conversion to be MOS:NAME-compliant:

After the war, Kocher retired from flying and moved to Washington State, where she married, raised a family, and lived for the rest of her life. In 2009, she was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal honoring her service during the war. Olsen died in 2019 at the age of 103.

That's just dumb. And, yes, I'm sure there's some way it could be reworded to avoid that, but I really think it makes more sense to leave it as it is now. RoySmith (talk) 14:11, 14 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Looking at some other FAs, such as Courtney Love, they do use anachronistic naming in both the lead and the body. I can also see a WP:IAR argument here that Olsen married after the exploits that make up most of the article, and therefore that it's better if the article generally refers to her by the name that readers will know, at least from the title. Given that the MoS only has "usually", I'm happy to respectfully ignore it here. UndercoverClassicist T·C 14:23, 14 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. BTW, I also did spend some time yesterday looking through other FAs. My take-home lessons from that were 1) We have very few FAs about women, 2) Of the ones we have, most never married, 3) Of the ones that married, a surprising percentage married other women, and 4) Of the ones that married men and took their names, we are indeed, as you observe, inconsistent in our application of MOS:NAME. Happy Pi Day! RoySmith (talk) 14:40, 14 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Olsen never flew commercially after the war, and not at all after having children: I think this needs to be and never flew at all after having children: otherwise, it reads as simply repeating the same thing.
  • She ran antique shops after raising their children: their is pretty far from its antecedent, so reads oddly. We could perhaps move this sentence before "Olsen never flew commercially..." to mitigate.
  • Olsen died on July 23, 2019, at her home in University Place, Washington, aged 103 and was given military honors at her funeral: there should really be a comma after 103, but I'd suggest splitting the sentence there anyway.

Thank you for the review. Except as noted in-line, I've actioned all of these. RoySmith (talk) 17:31, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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