Talk:French destroyer Dague

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:French destroyer Dague/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Harrias (talk · contribs) 19:19, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

I'll take a look at this. Harrias ^{(he/him) • talk} 19:19, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

References

• I'm unsure whether https://www.divemontenegro.com/dive-locations/dague/ meets the criteria to count as a reliable source. I know it isn't doing much heavy lifting, and it is specifically about the ship as a wreck. But the website is almost certainly self-published, and may not have rigorous fact-checking, especially as they are trying to promote their business. I don't suppose there are any alternative sources for this information?
  • I don't think that a commercial website can really be considered SPS. I agree that it's not the greatest quality source, but I struggled to find anything better. I did find a video on Youtube about a dive on Dague, but that really didn't have much hard info.
• The other references all appear to be to reliable sources.
• As references automatically add the harvard functionality now, I added "|ref=none" to get rid of some warnings from one of my extensions.
  • Thanks for that.
• References are consistently formatted in an appropriate style.
• It does look like there are a whole host of French-language contemporary news sources that might be useful. I've included a few below, and there are probably more, but my head is addled from my school-level French combined with Google translate!
  • This source pinpoints the time of the incident as 21:30 on 24 February. Worth adding?
  • This source appears to have a more detailed account of the incident, but would need to be used carefully, as it is a published letter.
  • This covers the investigation hearing into the sinking, and gives the commander's (Lieutenant Bousquet) account of the ship breaking up and the stern sinking first. He mentions that he believes the heavy swell contributed to the sinking. A number of the articles I've read have mentioned the bad weather at the time. The hearing absolved him of blame, and praised his service.
  • This mentions that General Paul Pau travelled on the ship in mid-February 1915, disembarking at Athens.
    • I struggled enough with Prévoteaux that I didn't want to deal with them as well, but I can hardly not take advantage of your kindnesses in finding them for me!--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 14:48, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

Images

• File:Contre-torpilleur Dague in 1914 (Agence Rol).jpg - has appropriate tag for both US and France. I don't particularly doubt it, but on what basis is it captioned as being in Toulon? There is nothing in the image source.
  • Good catch.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 15:14, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
• File:French destroyers Chasseur and Dague in Toulon on 28 September 1912.jpg - has appropriate tag for both US and France, and is suitably captioned.

Prose

• Link Boucliers again on its first use in the body. Same for "destroyer".
  • It's a short enough article that I don't think that any readers have forgotten what those are already.
• The infobox says that she was laid down in 1910, but this isn't included in the body, and so isn't cited.
• When I got down to the mention of Faulx later in the article, I was a bit surprised, as my reading of the Design and description section had interpreted it as meaning that the class only included Dague and her sister Cimeterre. It was probably just me, but maybe consider tweaking to something like "..the 12 ships of the class were built to a general specification and each shipyard was allowed to determine the best way to meet that specification. Dague and her sister Cimeterre were built together, and had an.."
  • Good idea
• Link "Battle of Antivari" in the body, and consider mentioning where it is here, rather than two sentences later. I think it is especially worth clarifying that Antivari is now better known as Bar.
  • All the links are in the lede.
• "..covered by cruisers and a distance of 20–50 miles (32–80 km)." Does this mean the destroyers were 20–50 miles from the transport, or the cruisers were 20–50 miles from the destroyers?
• "..of the next convoy that arrived on 23 February. The next day.." I found the close repetition of "next" a little jarring.

Overall, a nice piece of work. I do think the sinking could be expanded somewhat based on the French-language sources, but other than that it is mostly minor tweaks. Harrias ^{(he/him) • talk} 22:05, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

I think that it's pretty clear from the captain's testimony that the ship was at anchor when she was struck by the mine. If the weather had been severe enough that she dragged her anchors, I don't think that the captain would have been in his cabin.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 15:46, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

Great, all good with the changes, nice work. Harrias ^{(he/him) • talk} 15:12, 27 January 2023 (UTC)