Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Thomas Blamey/archive1

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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 Ucucha 16:09, 28 March 2012 [1].

Thomas Blamey

Thomas Blamey (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:53, 9 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The only Australian-born field marshal remains a controversial figure. Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:53, 9 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support. Well written and well sourced article. Ruslik_Zero 18:01, 11 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments. As always, feel free to revert my copyediting. Please check the edit summaries; WP:Checklist will explain some of them. - Dank (push to talk)

  • "Lake Albert, New South Wales, near Wagga Wagga, New South Wales": I don't remember any previous instance where it was necessary to repeat the state; is it necessary here?
    • Probably the work of a disambiguation bot. Does Wagga Wagga need "New South Wales"? All Australians know where it is. Hawkeye7 (talk) 02:32, 12 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "the Superior School": I don't get the "the"
    • Unfortunately, the articles on education suck, so no link is possible, but between 1881 until 1931 a superior public achool was a public school that provided both primary and post-primary education. Changed to "Wagga Wagga Superior Public School". Hawkeye7 (talk) 02:32, 12 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "while his family returned home to Australia": It's possible that this "while" could be interpreted as either "whereas" or "at the same time as"; if so, replace "while". - Dank (push to talk) 20:53, 11 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • How typical of the way I write: using a polyseme so the sentence has two meanings, both correct. Hawkeye7 (talk) 02:32, 12 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • "while" sounds good to my ear if they happened at the same time ... just doing my job here, passing along the recommendation of Chicago and Garner's to avoid "while" here, with the obvious disclaimer that this isn't AmEng. - Dank (push to talk) 20:24, 12 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "he was evacuated sick with vomiting and coughing. He was evacuated ...": repetition
  • "at Battle of Hamel": at the Battle of Hamel
  • "Monash rated him as a factor": I'd go with "Monash acknowledged his role"
  • "The Major General General Staff": is that right?
    • Yes. That is the formal title. You'll also see the abbreviation MGGS. Hawkeye7 (talk) 01:41, 13 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "without a tribute to the work and personality Brigadier General T. A. Blamey", "a infinite capacity", and possibly "the instrument to give effect my policies": do those need a [sic]? If so, they kind of take the shine off of this tribute.
    • Ah, Monash in his own voice. He used to talk like that all the time. Hawkeye7 (talk) 01:41, 13 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • I added [to], [of], and [an]. When a quote is folksy or informal, we leave it, but when it has elements that look like mistakes, either we insert bracketed corrections or add {{sic}}. - Dank (push to talk) 22:19, 17 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Blamey's loyalty to Monash would continue after the latter's death in 1931, and would have important consequences.": Great foreshadowing in a literary work ... not so great in WP, because people aren't expecting cleverness, they'll wonder if you left a sentence out. Also, it raises a question it doesn't answer.
  • "a joint Army-Navy board": If that was in the name of the board, I'm fine with it, but most connoisseurs of MOS are not, they'll want an en-dash.
  • "an separate air force": a separate
  • "Seeing no immediate prospects for advancement.": ?
  • So far so good; it flows nicely. I got down to Thomas Blamey#Chief Commissioner of the Victoria Police. I've promised Nick and MisterBee that I would get to their FACs tonight ... please have a whack at these, and you might want to re-check the rest of it as well. These are my edits. - Dank (push to talk) 01:06, 13 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • No rush on this one. It was only nominated the other day, so it will still be here for the next two months or so. Hawkeye7 (talk) 01:41, 13 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • The only thing left from above is that "and would have important consequences." needs to be "and would have important consequences for ...", whatever it had consequences for. Questions raised need to be answered somewhere in the general vicinity of where they're raised. - Dank (push to talk) 22:22, 17 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Continuing. "James McCay": I believe you wrote it "James M'Cay" above.
    • Jim M'Cay? Yes, I wrote that article. Took it all the way to featured. Hawkeye7 (talk) 03:21, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I made the changes in the next subsection. I'm now happy down to Thomas Blamey#Second World War, which gets me to the halfway point, and that's all the time I have so I won't be able to offer a support. Hopefully someone else will finish up and support. - Dank (push to talk) 23:14, 17 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Changed my mind, I'm going to finish this one, then go on a break from copyediting. - Dank (push to talk) 14:11, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • The blockquote following "During a speech" needs to be attributed to someone in the text, and the orthography in it needs to follow MOS.
    • Attributed to official historian Dudley McCarthy via a red link. Not sure about the problem is with the orthography... Hawkeye7 (talk) 19:37, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • Looking quickly, I see a space before a semicolon, spaces around an em-dash, and a comma before a quote mark that may not have been in the original. - Dank (push to talk) 21:14, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "when American troops were checked at in the Battle of Buna-Gona": I don't follow
    • Presume you mean that the military meaning of "check" (a form of defeat in which you are forced to stop operations) is too esoteric. Replaced with "serious reverses". Hawkeye7 (talk) 19:37, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • I meant "checked at in" doesn't make sense to me. - Dank (push to talk) 21:14, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • See "and would have important consequences" above.
    • Removed phrase. It's all explained below but to do so here would disrupt the chronology. It would effect the dogma of the right wing in Australia, the country's entry into World War II, and ultimately Australia's role in the creation of the state of Israel. Hawkeye7 (talk) 19:37, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Otherwise, I finished up and I'm ready to support. - Dank (push to talk) 15:47, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support on prose per standard disclaimer. These are my edits. - Dank (push to talk) 01:48, 19 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sources and images but no spotchecks. Nikkimaria (talk) 14:55, 13 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • File:General_Sir_Thomas_Blamey.jpg should use creation/publication rather than upload date - also applies to a number of other images
  • File:Australian_Army_Emblem.JPG: on what source was this image based?
    • It says "own work". What is your concern? I can render a legal opinion. Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:21, 13 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • Presumably the uploader created this image based on the actual design of an Australian Army Emblem? Nikkimaria (talk) 02:44, 14 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • Yes, that would be correct. There is no copyright issue, but there are legal restrictions on its use in Australia. Hawkeye7 (talk) 09:09, 14 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Could File:Blamey_E05006.jpg be cropped a bit at the bottom?
    • Yes, but then he would not be properly in the centre of the photograph. Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:21, 13 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • File:Thomas_Blamey_statue_Melbourne.jpg: second author link gives error message, other two external links redirect to city homepage
    • Removed dead links. Added the good one used in the article. Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:21, 13 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • What is the copyright status of the UK/Commonwealth ribbons? US are generally PD - is there a similar rule? Also, some of them are missing sources, to verify accuracy
    • Simple designs cannot be copyrighted in Australia. The medal itself can be, but you can always make a two dimensional copy of a three-dimensional artwork. Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:30, 13 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • File:NLD_Order_of_Orange-Nassau_-_Knight_Grand_Cross_BAR.png: source? What is the copyright status of the original design?
  • FN 54, 95, 152: formatting
    • What is the problem? Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:21, 13 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • 54 has a stray underline, 95 a doubled period, 152 a hyphen where there should be a dashed and incorrect formatting of quotes within title. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:44, 14 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • FN 103, 152, 153, 156: publisher?
  • FN 157: why italicize the quote?
  • FN 158, 159: don't italicize location
    • Not sure what you want here. Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:21, 13 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • The "(Australia)" part isn't actually part of the paper's title, and so shouldn't be italicized. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:44, 14 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • Hmmm. The National Library adds them. Will need to ask them to be more canny. Hawkeye7 (talk) 09:09, 14 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Check wikilinking in bibliography. Nikkimaria (talk) 14:55, 13 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support: I reviewed this late last year at A-class. It was a quality article then and appears to have gotten better since then. I made a couple of tweaks (please check that you are happy with them). Overall, I believe that this article meets the Featured Article criteria, but I have a couple of observations:

  • the caption for "File:Australian 1st Division headquarters Anzac 1915.jpg" mentions a "Major Gellibrand". Gellibrand doesn't appear to be mentioned elsewhere in the article, so I'm unsure of why his wounding is significant enough to mention in the caption. Additionally, is this Gellibrand, John Gellibrand? If so, a wikilink might be in order;
  • the duplicate link checker identifies a number of terms that might be considered "overlinked". Some might be necessary, others might not:
  • in the Chief Commissioner of the Victoria Police section: "Toorak, Victoria";
  • in the Middle East section: "Lieutenant General (Australia)", "Iven Mackay", and "John Lavarack";
  • in the Papuan campaign section: "Australian Military Forces";
  • in the New Guinea campaign section: "Frank Forde";
  • in the Final campaigns section: "Gavin Long";
  • in the After the war section: "War Office", "Governor General"; "William McKell", "William Bridgeford", "Edmund Herring", "Iven Mackay", "Leslie Morshead", "Sydney Rowell", "Stanley Savige";
  • in the Bibliography: "Official History of Australia in the War of 1914–1918"; "Australia in the War of 1939–1945". Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 12:33, 25 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • All done. Which duplicate link checker do you use? I've tried a few without success, but you may have a better one, or one may have improved since I last test drove it. Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:01, 25 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]


The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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