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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Hector Waller/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 promoted by SandyGeorgia 15:46, 24 January 2012 [1].

Hector Waller

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Hector Waller (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): Ian Rose (talk) 04:59, 7 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

No, surprisingly, not an RAAF flyboy. Fact is, I’ve long observed that while Australian military pilots are, if I say so myself, well served in terms of quality WP bios, as are Australian soldiers thanks to Hawkeye and also Bryce Abraham, the same can’t be said for Royal Australian Navy personnel. So putting my time where my mouth is, this is one of the RAN’s legendary commanders of World War II, who earned the admiration of Admiral Cunningham during the Mediterranean campaign and who, had he not been lost with his cruiser HMAS Perth in the Pacific during the Battle of Sunda Strait, might well have become Australia's pre-eminent naval officer of the post-war period. The submarine HMAS Waller was named in his honour. This article passed its MilHist A-Class Review today, and GA last month. I'd also like to acknowledge the work of Janggeom, who improved it from a stub to something pretty close to B-Class before I took it on. Thanks in advance for your comments! Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 04:59, 7 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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

Andrew William "Nicky" Barr
  • I meant to ask around while that was at FAC but forgot about it. I think the issue that people raise is that it's better to say explicitly what the extra name is (a name used since childhood, a name they got in the service or later, whatever.) - Dank (push to talk) 23:15, 7 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • I think you and I resolved this at the discussion linked above, i.e. that Hec is a common shortened form of Hector, he seemed to be known as that pretty well from childhood, and the way I present it in the first sentence is as it appears in his Australian Dictionary of Biography entry; this style has passed muster at numerous other military bios I've taken to FAC over the years where the subject was also known by a common short form of their given name. Barr is a different situation, because clearly "Nicky" wasn't derived from his given names; rather it was invented when he acquired a reputation as a maverick at flying school, and was tagged "Nicky" for "Old Nick" (i.e. the Devil) -- so I mentioned/cited that at the appropriate point in the Barr article narrative. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 05:16, 8 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "If selected for the VC, Waller would become one of the first Australian sailors so honoured—to date, no RAN member has been awarded the decoration.": Are you saying that at least one Australian sailor who served in the RN or some other navy has been selected for the VC, but none so far from the RAN? I'm not sure if readers are going to pick up on that.
    • I'm not entirely happy with the sentence and would be happy to rejig it. First off, "Australian sailor" and "RAN member" are synonymous in my statement -- there's no (deliberate) suggestion that an Aussie serving in the Royal Navy has ever received the VC. Secondly, I'd love to say Waller would be "the first" RAN member to get the VC, but as other RAN members are also being considered, he may only be "one of the first", or "among the first". Suggestions welcome. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 05:16, 8 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support on prose per standard disclaimer. These are my edits. - Dank (push to talk) 03:32, 8 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sources review

  • Spotchecks carried out on online sources - no problems identified
  • What makes http://home.vicnet.net.au/~bfamhist/features/hmlwaller.htm a high-quality reliable source?
    • Not much I'm afraid. The sentence was there when I began expanding this article and I was in two minds about the source myself but considered it non-controversial so left it in. Although there's most definitely a Waller St in Benalla, no other source I can see directly links him to it, nor do the other assertions re. the cenotaph and the college have other sources I can see. So I'm quite prepared to remove the sentence and the ref if you think it's an issue -- there's plenty on his memorials in that section that is cited reliably. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 00:09, 11 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Otherwise, no issues arising from sources which, subject to the one mentioned above, look reliable. Brianboulton (talk) 18:58, 10 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks for your time, Brian -- the fracas at WT:FAC hasn't diverted everyone from the fact that there are still reviews to be done... ;-) Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 00:09, 11 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think the sentence in question is critical to the article, and I recommend removing it to setttle the issue. Brianboulton (talk) 10:13, 11 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
No prob, will do. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 12:30, 11 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support with nitpicks. Nikkimaria (talk) 21:07, 11 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • A couple of the images have publisher marks - any chance we can get rid of those?
    • There's always a chance...! I do tend to remove watermarks when I upload images; if the images are already there, pragmatism sometimes gets the better of me. I'll see how I go...
  • Do we know when his children were born?
    • We know one from an RS because he joined the Navy; the other I only know from a self-published tribute to their father, so can't really use it. I felt better to mention neither birthdate than just one.
  • "duty that included" -> "a duty that included"?
    • Sounds fair.
  • Captions that are complete sentences should end in periods
    • Heh, I think Janggeom just expanded a few of those captions, which were only phrases before, so I guess this is fair enough too now... ;-)
  • Be consistent in whether Bar is capitalized or not
    • Sure.
  • Were there any consequences of his contravention of orders at Java Sea?
    • It'd be interesting to speculate whether the Dutch commander would've tried to take action had Waller lived more than a day or so after that incident but my sources didn't seem to suggest that.
  • He engaged the Japanese at 11:00 pm in what time zone? Nikkimaria (talk) 21:07, 11 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Query: the dates in the lead grabbed my attention right away (died at 42, but had a 30-year career and served in both World Wars, how did he do that?), so I was put off that the lead didn't tell me how he died young! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:16, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Um, doesn't it? I thought it said all that in the first para... Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 00:33, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • His death is a bit opaque to us non-military folk ... "shortly before his final action in Sunda Strait. He received a third mention in despatches posthumously," ... so we sorta know he died in the Sunda Strait, but it would be nice to know more in the lead ... also to know how he managed 30 years (by joining up at 13) ... the lead left me wondering what the heck ? How did he do all that ... a dozen more words would have made me less ... suspicious :) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:35, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • So "went down with his ship against heavy odds during the Battle of Sunda Strait in early 1942" in the first para isn't clear enough about his fate? Of course I could change it to "was killed in action when his ship was sunk by Japanese forces during the Battle of Sunda Strait in early 1942" but "went down with his ship" is pretty common phraseology -- unless you think it's cliched, which is another matter. As to his age at signing up to explain the long career, I didn't think it was necessary in the first para as it's right there in the first sentence of the second. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 01:57, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
          • Ah, ha, I see now why I missed it ... sorry! I was looking for that info in the final para ... an artefact of me getting balled up trying to figure out how he did all that in 30 years, and forgetting what I'd read in the first para. Still missing an image review-- you folks at MilHist could significantly speed up your FAC turnaround time if you'd train someone over there to do image reviews and to spotcheck sources for close paraphrasing (hint :). Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2008-08-11/Dispatches Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2008-09-22/Dispatches SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:06, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
            • I think that's what they keep me around for ;-). Nikkimaria (talk) 03:41, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
              • Of course, why do you think we practically drafted you for MilHist Coordinator, Nikki?! Seriously, Sandy, many of our reviewers at MilHist check images and an increasing number, like myself, are spotchecking available sources for copyvio and close paraphrasing, at least for articles nominated by less experienced or less 'known' editors. Are you saying that links/diffs of such reviews at ACR (or at least those by editors the FAC delegates deem reliable or 'expert', however that's determined) could be included with FAC noms to speed things up? Feel free to take this up at my talk page or at the MilHist Coord's page, since it goes beyond this nom and shouldn't get forgotten when this closes... Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 04:10, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
                • Thanks, Nikki (Nikkimaria should not be doing all of the work at FAC, FAR, MilHist, DYK and everywhere else!) When/if we ever get around to actually discussing needed improvements at FAC, one of those needs to be: please link to any previous clearance of sources, images, spotcheck, whatever so that delegates can review. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:40, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Images are fine per pre-1955 Australia rule, captions are good. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:41, 24 January 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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