Talk:Richard Peck (RAF officer)

Did you know nomination

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 97198 (talk) 08:36, 13 August 2022 (UTC)

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• ... that Air Vice-Marshal Richard Peck ensured the Royal Air Force ordered 50 de Havilland Mosquitos in 1940? Source: https://www.key.aero/article/far-better-we-thought
  • ALT1: ... that Air Vice-Marshal Richard Peck prevented the de Havilland Mosquito, which turned out to be an extremely versatile warplane, from being cancelled in 1940? Source: https://www.key.aero/article/far-better-we-thought

Created by Cagliost (talk). Self-nominated at 16:12, 25 May 2022 (UTC).

• The article is long enough and was new enough when nominated. The hook is 106 characters, so nice length, and is cited (behind a paywall, so AGF) . With only 2 DYK credits, QPQ is not applicable yet. The key issue is that the hook isn't interesting. A guy who's job it was to order military equipment ordered some military equipment? The hook needs to be re-written to show why his ordering the Mosquito was newsworthy. I can't read behind the paywall, but the hook should probably start off with something like, "despite the military being unsure of the value of the plane, ..." Once you've reworked the hook to show more context of why ordering the planes was controversial, ping me and I'll take another look. Onel5969 ^{TT me} 11:02, 8 June 2022 (UTC)
• Courtesy ping to Cagliost. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 06:57, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
  • I've put the paywalled text here. I've expanded the article a little. Basically the aircraft was almost cancelled because it wasn't clear that it would be suitable for any purpose. Even its champion, Freeman, almost cancelled it, but Peck persuaded him otherwise. It turned out to be extremely versatile and was used until the end of the war.

How about the ALT1 I've added? I don't want to make the hook too long, hopefully readers will infer (from the fact that it was almost cancelled) that it was controversial. Then they can click through to the article to find out why. cagliost (talk) 10:58, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

• Courtesy ping to Onel5969. Did a bit of reordering in ALT1. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 19:27, 18 June 2022 (UTC)

ALT2: ... that Air Vice-Marshal Richard Peck prevented the de Havilland Mosquito from being cancelled in 1940? Source: https://www.key.aero/article/far-better-we-thought

Brevity is the soul of wit. And hookiness. Maury Markowitz (talk) 14:41, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

ALT3: ... that Air Vice-Marshal Richard Peck prevented the de Havilland Mosquito from being cancelled by ordering 50 of them in 1940?

Just a bit more explicit, I think it's important to say how he prevented it. Courtesy ping to Sammi Brie and Maury Markowitz for input. I think ALT2 would be okay, but I like ALT3 better. Onel5969 ^{TT me} 17:14, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

on ALT3, as cited in the url above. All else as original review above. Maury Markowitz (talk) 17:25, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

@Cagliost and Maury Markowitz: Two statements were missing citations, which I have indicated in the article with citation needed tags. Can you resolve those before this is promoted to a prep set? Thanks. Z1720 (talk) 17:50, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

Both are in the first ref. Maury Markowitz (talk) 18:18, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

I see Maury Markowitz has added references. Thanks all! cagliost (talk) 18:22, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

Readding the tick so promoters know this is ready. Z1720 (talk) 19:18, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

Maury Markowitz Z1720 The bit about cancelling isn't in the article. Why is it that multiple members were so worried about the hook that the article was never checked to see if it was there? SL93 (talk) 03:27, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

Fixed, it is now in the article. cagliost (talk) 08:05, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

@Cagliost, Maury Markowitz, SL93, and Onel5969: reopening this as the hook fact doesn't seem to be exactly the same as what the article says. "Richard Peck prevented the de Havilland Mosquito from being cancelled by ordering 50 of them in 1940?" implies that it was Peck's decision to order them that directly prevented the cancellation; almost like he was being a bit stealthy or something by putting the order in before they had a chance to cancel on him? The article, however, says "In 1940 Peck ensured the RAF ordered 50 de Havilland Mosquitos for reconnaissance. This was planned to be one of the fastest aircraft of its time, but there had been disagreements about its purpose and it was almost cancelled" which to me says that Peck was influential in preventing the cancellation, but it wasn't *directly* his decision to order that saved the project. I don't have access to the source as it's behind a paywall (and perhaps that means it should be an AGF promotion?). Also, looking at the most recent tick it looks like the nominator approved their own hook here, which of course isn't allowed. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 13:11, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

PS - I've just seen that the source has been copied to a "paste bin" for us to view, (which is probably technically a copyvio, but an offsite one so that's on the OP rather than Wikipedia! Also it means we're technically still AGF that the uploaded text is the same as the original, but of course no reason do doubt that.) Anyway, having read the source myself, it appears that the hook fact is simply incorrect. The order of the 50 planes was made *before* the meeting on whether or they should cancel, so it was purely Peck's arguing for the case, rather than the order of the 50 planes itself, that saved the day. I think a modified or new hook will be required. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 13:19, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

I've updated the article again. If this is unsatisfactory please feel free to be bold and change it to your liking. cagliost (talk) 13:25, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

Oddly the key.aero article isn't paywalled for me. cagliost (talk) 13:26, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

ALT4 ... that in a "heated meeting" with Air Marshal Wilfrid Freeman, Air Vice-Marshal Richard Peck prevented the cancellation of the de Havilland Mosquito in 1940? Maury Markowitz (talk) 19:50, 30 June 2022 (UTC)

@Amakuru: Still with us? Maury Markowitz (talk) 16:24, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

@Maury Markowitz and BlueMoonset: sorry for the delay, I have been insanely busy of late, and now on vacation. The above hook is probably OK, but we would need to have everything mentioned in it covered by the article. If we're going to use (in quotes) the term "heated meeting", then that needs to be (a) in the article, (b) cited, and (c) attributed to someone - say in the article who called it that. If we can get to that point then I can reapprove. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 14:57, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

• @Cagliost, Maury Markowitz, and Amakuru: Any updates on this? It's been almost two weeks since the last comment. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 01:27, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

ALT5 ... the de Havilland Mosquito was almost cancelled in 1940, but Air Vice-Marshal Richard Peck persuaded Air Marshal Wilfrid Freeman to continue the programme? cagliost (talk) 15:31, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

Just pinging @Amakuru in case they missed ALT5 being suggested, which I think is cited properly now. (Also, @Cagliost, I think you should better not put paywalled text in a space where it is publicly available. I mean, we have AGF for a reason. And anyway, it's not needed anymore.) --LordPeterII (talk) 23:18, 12 August 2022 (UTC)

OK, ALT5 seems to be OK now. I can't see the pay walled text but I gather it's OK. Approving. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 23:23, 12 August 2022 (UTC)