Talk:French ship Vengeur du Peuple/GA2

GA Review

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Reviewer: Cdtew (talk · contribs) 13:25, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

I would be happy to review this. It may take me a little extra time, but I should have my thoughts done by this evening. Cdtew (talk) 13:25, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Comments:

• Is there a way that you can think of to provide a conversion or comparison for the 500,000 livres cost? I'm not a fan of providing direct conversions for costs of this age, but perhaps you can provide a comparative to average ship costs or the like?
• I think a wikilink to a definition of careening may be helpful.
• Your use of the phrase "superior French squadron" slightly goes against NPOV unless you qualify it - superior in numbers, guns, etc?
• The first sentence of the "Campaign of 1778–1780 under La Poype de Vertrieu" is loooong. I'd suggest cutting it into multiple sentences for clarity.
• As a note, I do a lot of AmRevWar articles, and I find the terms "American" and "rebels" to be imprecise. Generally I find it more precise to use the term Patriots (as contrasted with Loyalists and the British Army). Your mileage may vary, but that's just a suggestion so that there's more uniformity in the subject area.
• "The French fleet sustained damage at the Siege of Savannah and eventually returned to Europe. Marseillois returned to Toulon with Zélé, Sagittaire, Protecteur, and Expériment[15] 46 members of her crew had died during the campaigns, of which only three in combat.[5]".

This is one long sentence, and needs to be broken up and rephrased.

• "shall never sail distinguishly" - is that directly from the source, or translated? I'm not familiar with the term distinguishly - perhaps "distinguishably"?
• You might wan to clarify where Cadix is by wiki linking.
• "probably a response to Marseille's parts " - This is a little awkward phrasing. Maybe "probably in response to Marseille's role"?
• You may want to explain what a "rope ram" is to the uninitiated.

This is all-around an excellent article, worthy most likely of Featured status, and with a little more polishing, certain to get tha point. I am honored to have been able to review it for GAN. Let me know if my comments have raised any questions. Cdtew (talk) 04:20, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

I am very grateful for the helpful suggestions and the flatering appreciation. I have tried to answer the questions and suggestions with these edits:

• 500,000 livres cost: [1] (this is a very interesting and tricky question)
• Careening: [2] (the link to Careening is given with the synonymous expression "hove down")
• "superior French squadron": [3]
• The first sentence of the "Campaign of 1778–1780 under La Poype de Vertrieu": [4]
• "American" and "rebels": [5]
• Long sentence "The French fleet sustained damage at the Siege of Savannah": [6]
• "shall never sail distinguishly": [7] (I hope "sailor" is not too obscure in this sense)
• Cadix: [8]
• "probably a response to Marseille's parts ": [9]
• "rope ram": [10]

Thank you very much again, and do not hesitate to ask if you see anything to further improve the article. Cheers! Rama (talk) 07:37, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Response from Reviewer: Rama, thank you for the swift edits. This is almost ready to go, but I'm a little concerned about your edits re: comparative cost of the ship. You're right, it is a tricky question, but here's how I've resolved it in another context (that of a French and Indian War Fort): I found two book sources that stated the costs of two other forts, and cited to them while comparing and contrasting the forts (ie: 10,000 pounds gets you a wooden palisade fort in North Carolina, while 60,000 pounds bought this stone fort in New York, and 20,000 pounds built a blockhouse in Pennsylvania).

In this case, here's my concern: sources [1] and [3] appear to not meet WP:RS, in that they are respectively a website article without good citation to sources (that my rusty French can tell), and the latter being a message board, which I'm fairly certain doesn't pass WP:VERIFY. What I would suggest (and I apologize, I should have been clearer about this before) is to find a reliable source that compares the cost of another or two other famous french ships to this.

As a side note, while [2] appears to be a good source, I'm wary of comparing the price of butter to the cost of a ship, as that doesn't really provide an easily-ascertainable comparative and contrast to the cost of this ship. In other words, I could say that this ship cost the same as 1.3 million pounds of butter, but psychologically I think humans have a very hard time using that as a basis for comparison. Similarly, I don't like inflation-adjustment charts that go back 250 years because they universally fail to take into account things like non-currency transactions, cost of living adjustments, and monetary policy and currency changes. Lastly, if you use grams and kilogrammes in the note, you'd probably need to do a conversion template to ounces and pounds. Cdtew (talk) 13:27, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Also: the note for the following paragraph is gone, and it now lacks an in-line citation for some reason. So that there's not too many chefs spoiling the broth I'll let you backtrack your edits to repair this:

La Poype de Vertrieu wrote his report and recommendations for the refitting of Marseillois on 24 December 1779; he found her a passable ship, but her high poop hindered her sailing when running, and he recommended improvements to the gun ports of the castles, which were obstructed and allowed only two guns on the quarterdeck and one on the forecastle to be used. Furthermore, substantial repairs on the rigging were needed, and she needed her hull heated to kill worms. La Poype de Vertrieu wrote "it appears that Marseillois shall never be an exceptional sailor, but I am convinced that she will give satisfaction".[note 3]

Ah yes, I'd removed the inline reference because I though it was redundent with the reference in the note, but indeed I needed to reference the main text as well. I've restablished the reference.

Thank you very much for your suggestions on the price; as you can tell, I had never considered this question in much depth, though it is a very interesting one. I'll look for good references on the price of ships and let you know as soon as I have something. Cheers! Rama (talk) 15:20, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

OK, I can either place this on hold until you find something, or if you just wanted to remove citations 1 and 3 from Note 3, I will go ahead and pass it. It is your call. Cdtew (talk) 17:52, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

In fact, I have just found the prices for the three-decker Bretagne, built around the same time (and also with a "Don des vaisseaux" public subscription); these figures are coherant with those for Marseillois (the three-decker is over twice the price, as I would expect) and come from conference proceedings, which should be reasonably serious (the figures are also coherent with those given on the French Wikipedia, which references a book that I don't have at the moment). The edit is [11] Is that the sort of thing you had in mind?

Thank you again and cheers! Rama (talk) 20:05, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Parfait! This is ready to be passed. Best of luck in the future. Cdtew (talk) 00:56, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Thank you very much for your helpful comments, the valuable sugestions (I'll try to develop a habit of comparing prices when possible) and the encouragements. Cheers! Rama (talk) 04:06, 7 May 2013 (UTC)