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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Battle of Tory Island

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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 User:SandyGeorgia 00:50, 30 July 2008 [1].

Battle of Tory Island

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Nominator(s): Jackyd101 (talk)

Self-nom. I wrote this article on a minor naval action of the French Revolutionary Wars back in March when I didn't really have time for an FAC. Now I do, it has passed for GA and I think this meets the FA criteria, so let me know what you think. Jackyd101 (talk) 07:50, 15 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments - sources look good, links all checked out with the link checker tool. Ealdgyth - Talk 13:31, 15 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • I've audited the dates and removed the autoformatting to allow your high-value links to breathe. MOSNUM no longer encourages date-linking. No glitches in the formatting, BTW, which is uncommon!
  • This is an interesting article indeed. The prose needs a little work, though. Here are random examples:
    • "Ireland was seen on the European continent as a weak point in Britain's defences because unlike in Britain herself, a landing of foreign troops in Ireland could count on the support of a large proportion of the native population."—"unlike in Britain" is clumsy. Needs recasting, possibly with a colon in the middle.
    • "Such a force would also expect"—stronger without "also".
    • "The divided nature of French politics"—whenever I see "nature", I quail. Is this better? "Divisions in French politics". the operation, not this.
    • "These failures bred a negative mentality amongst the French officer corps which had survived The Terror and discouraged adventurous strategic thinking." What is "The Terror"? Explain briefly: we shouldn't have to hit the link or look up the ref to find out.
    • "with 13 ships lost and over 2,000 men drowned"—after "lost", it sounds as though the men were drowned as you do to unwanted kittens in the bathtub.
Are you suggesting that the word "lost" or the word "drowned" is at fault here? If the former, I chose it because "sunk or captured" seemed too long winded. If the latter, I can't really think of a viable alternative.--Jackyd101 (talk) 15:57, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • "The following year, Tone and his companions attempted a second time to land troops in Ireland, persuading the government of the Netherlands, then under French occupation, to prepare their own expedition." Why not "companions again attempted"? I can't quite get why the persuasion of the Dutch is relevant in this sentence. The Dutch haven't yet been mentioned.
Grammar aside, this paragraph is important because the section is disscussing the efforts of the United Irishmen to persuade France (or in this case a French client state) to inavde Ireland. Camperdown was the second of three failed attempts to successful invade Ireland, the final one of which is the subject of this article.--Jackyd101 (talk) 15:57, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And lots more. I have high hopes for this article, but the prose needs to be significantly improved. I can't stress enough how important it is to bring on board fresh editors—word-nerds if possible. Identify them through the edit history pages (edit summaries give them away) of articles on similar topics. They could be valuable future collaborators, too. Oh, and there are rather a lot of red links. Do you think you could write stubs for some of them? Wouldn't take long, surely. TONY (talk) 14:39, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your comments. I've dealt with you immediate issues and will go over the article again soon. I do have some regular copyeditors but they all seem to be a bit busy at the moment, I'll try widening the net. Regarding date formatting, I'm now very confused. Can you link directly to the relevent bit of WP:MOSNUM so I can understand it for future reference?--Jackyd101 (talk) 15:57, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments Ah yes, there now seems to be a lack of copyeditors. I can barely find any for the main article I'm working on McGill

It seems quite good actually, and I can only find a couple of errors.

  • One tiny thing, it would be better in paragraph one, in the section Warren's Pursuit, line four,
After arriving off the coast...

Just take out the after. I'll reread the article later. Others, good job. --Sunsetsunrise (talk) 18:07, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment I haven't really read the article yet, but at first glance I noticed that in the sentence, Saumarez immediately gave chase to Savary's force, and the squadrons exchanged long–distance cannon fire throughout the day., the en dash should be changed to a hyphen in this case, per MoS. Juliancolton Tropical Cyclone 18:45, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I noticed this article was a FAC so I went ahead and recreated the PNG battle map in SVG format. This way if it makes it onto the main page, now there is a more visible, scalable map that can be used as a thumb to accompany the article. I haven't read through the article yet either though so I can't really say much about the content. TIM KLOSKE|TALK 01:15, 17 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thankyou, I wonder if you would be willing to do the same for Image:Battle of Lissa 1811 Map.png? The article it represents passed FAC a couple of weeks ago but I didn't know how to svg the map. Regards.--Jackyd101 (talk) 07:45, 17 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support—It is FA-worthy and I could find no significant issues. A more tactical map or two would have been helpful to follow some of the action, but I can understand if none are available.—RJH (talk) 18:45, 29 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Tactical maps are difficult and prone to controversy because the initial reports of the action were so contradictory (as discussed in the footnote). Otherwise I'd love to have one. Regards--Jackyd101 (talk) 20:23, 29 July 2008 (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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