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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Dudley Clarke/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 not promoted by GrahamColm 20:41, 2 October 2012 [1].

Dudley Clarke

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Dudley Clarke (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): Errant (chat!) 21:33, 28 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Dudley Clarke is a sadly overlooked figure; he quietly revolutionised military deception for the Allies during WW2, the files on his activities locked till well into the 70s (and even later, in some cases). I am nominating this article for Featured status to obtain the highest level of scrutiny Wikipedia can offer. It is the first FAC in what I hope to be a series on deception during the war. The research for this has been immense (and also fun) but I am now confident it covers the entirety of his life, as it is exists on record. What I need help with is making sure the article exhibits the very best prose and style. This is my first FAC so please be a little gentle with me :) Errant (chat!) 21:33, 28 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments. As always, feel free to revert my copyediting. Please check the edit summaries. - Dank (push to talk)

  • Welcome to FAC. I noticed this article wasn't tagged for WP:Milhist ... if there are any other military history articles you're working on that aren't tagged, I'll be happy to do it.
  • We prefer consistency on Second World War vs. World War II, and similarly for World War I. BritEng articles tend to go with Second World War and First World War, but I don't have a preference.- Dank (push to talk) 21:35, 29 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "spent the rest of the war learning to fly; first in Reading and then Egypt.": We use commas here instead of semicolons or colons ... I see there are more of these later on.
  • "First, Tony Simonds (with whom he worked on intelligence in the region) and, later, John Dill and Archibald Wavell.": sentence fragment.
  • ✓ reworked --Errant (chat!) 23:07, 29 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "he formulated the idea for commando raids into France – the early stages of the British Commandos.": I think I'd prefer something more specific, like "planned" or "proposed" or whatever his role was. Also, in what way is this the early stages? Same people, same modus operandi, same unit?
    • ✓ This is a little more difficult. He proposed the idea and was then "volunteered" to help organise it. The raiding parties eventually became the British Commandos, but that is way outside the scope of this article as his involvement ended soon after the first rads. See what you think of the new version --Errant (chat!) 23:07, 29 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The following year he established 'A' Force; the eponymous department which would define his legacy": I may be missing something, but doesn't this work without the "eponymous"? (And watch the semicolon, as before.)
  • "Once the department has taken root": ... had taken root.
  • Otherwise, so far so good on prose per standard disclaimer, down to where I stopped, at the end of the lead. - Dank (push to talk) 21:51, 29 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oh, and don't use templates like {{done-t}} on FAC pages ... WP:FAC transcludes all the pages, so templates can put WP:FAC over the limit. - Dank (push to talk) 02:49, 31 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "the greatest deceiver of World War 2": Where does the quote come from?
  • "nearby military present at Aldershot, including the new Royal Flying Corps.": What was he exposed to at Aldershot other than the RFC? - Dank (push to talk) 02:57, 31 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Army mostly - but also the military establishment. And I think there was a naval contingent there at some point too (might be about the same time). Aldershot is a big military "hub". Sources are non-specific, just say that he was influenced by the glitz/glamour of the uniforms. So I've added something about that. Pointing out the RFC being located there ties to his later decision to join them from the RA. --Errant (chat!) 09:52, 31 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Continuing. "In 1923 he reformed the Royal Artillery Officers Dramatic Club": Were they naughty? I assumed not, and went with "re-formed".
  • See WP:ALLCAPS; capitalize the first letter only, except in acronyms and initialisms. Instead of "TORCH", write "Operation Torch" (and link on first occurrence of course). - Dank (push to talk) 21:45, 18 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support on prose per standard disclaimer. These are my edits. (Edits may take days to show up on that page.) - Dank (push to talk) 15:34, 19 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • One more point, and I'm done: "whilst", "amongst": Just be aware that there's an issue here, and many writers prefer "while" and "among" even in BritEng. "whilst" in particular has a slightly pompous and comical feel for some non-Brit readers, and AmEng style guides universally recommend against these two words. - Dank (push to talk) 17:36, 20 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • I confess to not being a fan of "while" over "whilst" :) But I'm happy to replace the word "whilst" with "while" to meet style conventions. I don't think there is a use of "amongst" in the article. --Errant (chat!) 09:48, 21 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sources review - spotchecks not done

  • Check alphabetization of Bibliography
  • Molnari or Molinari?
  • Don't provide full bibliographic info in both Bibliography and References
  • No citations to Hastings
  • Cruickshank: closing quotes in wrong place
  • Be consistent in whether you provide location for newspapers. Nikkimaria (talk) 15:46, 30 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Cheers! I Think I addressed all these points. Excellent catch on the Molinari reference (making a note to self about checking references copied from other articles) --Errant (chat!) 16:07, 30 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Carcharoth emailed me to say he will be leaving some comments here later today :) --Errant (chat!) 14:47, 20 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Errant. I'll copy over my notes now. Carcharoth (talk) 23:14, 20 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments (version reviewed)from Carcharoth (talk) 23:50, 20 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Starting at the end of the article... I was wondering what the point of the 'see also' section is? Normally, the ideal at FAC is for these to be integrated into the article, and it seems this can be done here (see below). Unless there is a reason this link has been kept here?
  • The precise date of gazetting of all the awards listed in that section near the end are available. Certainly the year and level of the Legion of Merit (1946, Officer) should be provided. When I Googled it, I went from this to this to this. That last one (from the London Gazette) is the one that I'd cite, if your current source doesn't give the details.
  • However, rather than list the awards, I think they should be integrated into the text, with any listing being done in the infobox (the OBE is missing from the infobox, though that may be deliberate). I also went and looked up the pages in the London Gazette for the awards. His OBE is here. His CBE is here. His Order of the Bath is here. One more minor quibble about the wording: rather than "several British and American awards", why not "three British awards and one American award"?
  • In the lead, some of the language is a touch overdone: "under the shadow of", "As the First World War dawned", "had a first taste". There are some traces of this in the main text as well: "sprang up", "first taste", "just in time". Also, is there a reason why the following in the lead doesn't have links? "British Commandos, the Special Air Service and the U.S. Rangers".
    • Is this a serious issue? I tried to keep the writing formal, but interesting :) (also: ✓ fixed the links) --Errant (chat!) 09:51, 24 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • I'll offer an opinion if you want it: there are probably better metaphors for wars than "dawning". Having a "first taste" of disinformation seems a little off. In "Chanak Crisis sprang up", my problem isn't so much with "sprang up" as that most readers won't know what you're saying; it might be good to add something like "a threatened Turkish attack on British and French troops". The others seem like a matter of personal preference ... which everyone's entitled to have, of course. - Dank (push to talk) 20:04, 24 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The man who would grow up" - should be 'boy' not 'man'.
  • This bit: "Soon afterwards he accompanied their first raid into France, although with express orders to remain in the boat, and was almost shot in the ear." appears to be Operation Collar (linked in 'see also'). Is there a reason the exact date is not given and the article not linked? I can see there are contradictions between "a slight wound" and "almost shot in the ear", but those contradictions should be addressed and resolved, if possible, for FAC.
  • In the '1943: Barclay' section, the word 'phase' is used instead of the correct 'faze', see here.
  • These bits: "He then took a job at Conservative Central Office" - what year?; "He also served as a director of Securicor for a while." - this is too vague to be useful. Both bits also appear to be unsourced - it is unclear what source these two items are from.
  • In the 'After the war' section, the link to 'Michael Howard' is to the wrong one. Should be to Michael Howard (historian). This is a serious error in linking - suggest all links are carefully checked to see if they are correct. The original edit introducing this link is here.
    • ✓ fixed. Ugh, I do have a note about Howard's article link on my desk (as he is important to the topic), but this one I missed. Checked the other links this morning, but will keep checking them to be sure :) --Errant (chat!) 09:41, 21 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • End section: 'middle class origins' needs a hyphen for 'middle-class', ditto for "upper class establishment". Dates needed for Nina and the Sussex woman, and also a link for Weisban (possibly Wiesbaden?). It is not at all clear where this Weisban is! Do you sources give more details?
    • ✓ the hyphens. I will check on Weisban in the sources - no dates for the relationships, they are discussed in the context of him not marrying, and rest on several comments from people who knew him. But Holt makes no mention of dates IIRC. --Errant (chat!) 09:41, 21 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • ✓ It was Wiesbaden, my error. Thanks for catching it. I was also misremembering the dates - Holt mentions one exact year and one vague date (late 1920s). Best I can find :) --Errant (chat!) 23:45, 27 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • In the books section, "pp. XXX" should be "XXX pp." (the former is used to refer to pages within a book, the latter to number of pages in a book). I believe this is the convention, but you may want to double-check this.
  • I found two additional snippets of information in the London Gazette: (i) Address at death is here. He was living in Dolphin Square. (ii) He was mentioned in despatches, see here.
  • That mentioned in dispatches, I found while searching the records of the National Archives, where I also found the following: (i) Medal card here. (ii) WWI service records here. (iii) Three WW2 records here (the mentioned in despatches and two of his three awards). Not all those will be useful, but it might be worth putting them in the external links in some form.

Apart from that, the article was excellent. I enjoyed reading Clarke's story, and the writing is really good. Very much brings it to life. I'm looking forward to reading more about deception strategies during WW2. Carcharoth (talk) 23:50, 20 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the review & the compliment! Comments are in-line, if I haven't commented then I'll be working on fixing the issue over the next day or so :) Holt is the main source for this; his book is exhaustive in detail, so where he doesn't note dates there likely is not record or information about this. --Errant (chat!) 09:41, 21 September 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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