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Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Phillip Davey

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The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Article promoted by Cinderella157 (talk) via MilHistBot (talk) 01:30, 19 March 2018 (UTC) « Return to A-Class review list[reply]

Phillip Davey

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Nominator(s): Peacemaker67 (talk)

Phillip Davey (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

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Phillip Davey was a South Australian soldier who was awarded both the Victoria Cross and the Military Medal for his gallantry during World War I. The article includes all information from all unique sources I have been able to locate, including the Australian Dictionary of Biography and his battalion history. It successfully went through GAN last year. He is the second South Australian VC recipient I have brought to ACR, with the eventual aim of getting all of them to FA. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 03:35, 21 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Support Comments: Zawed

  • Perhps it is a style thing for you, but no specific battles listed in the infobox, just World War I?
  • Added campaigns, didn't want to make it a shopping list.
  • Lead: the first sentence of the 2nd para has two "re-", which I find a little jarring. Perhaps the second could be replaced with "returned"?
  • Done.
  • Given the overall length of the article, I wonder if the lead could be made a little more succinct; perhaps the mention of joining the battlion 2 weeks before Gallipoli and covering force could be removed along with the 2nd sentence of the 2nd para removed?
  • Done.
  • Can something about the presentation ceremony for the VC be added? I found this link at Trove, but there is probably a more informative one that could be found.
  • Nice find, added. I couldn't find anything more detailed.
  • Wow - three brothers getting the MM!
  • ISBN or OCLC number for the Burness ref?
  • It is the online version.
  • Image tags look OK to me (not that I'm an expert, mind)

That's my nitpicks done. Cheers, Zawed (talk) 10:23, 22 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for taking a look, Zawed! Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 08:39, 24 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
All good, have added my support. Zawed (talk) 02:08, 3 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Support Comments: good luck with improving all of the South Australian VC recipient bios, a very worthy project, indeed! In regards to this article I have the following suggestions: AustralianRupert (talk) 07:35, 24 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  • Suggest mentioning Davey's siblings in the Early life section: he had at least three brothers, I believe (per Les Carlyon's The Great War, pp. 635-636), all of whom enlisted.
  • four brothers in fact, added.
  • I wonder if it is know where Davey did his basic training before embarkation?
  • Given the dates, from my own knowledge I'd say almost certainly Morphettville (where the original 10th Battalion trained) then the last couple of months at the Mitcham camp, but his records don't specify.
  • regarding the part where Davey embarks for France, I wonder if it should be clarified here that the AIF's infantry divisions had been transferred to the European front after the end of the Gallipoli campaign?
  • Done.
  • the body of the article doesn't seem to specify any named battles that he fought in while on the Western Front
  • Added.
  • seems a litle repetitious: "...his unit was in a reserve area, returning to his unit..." (his unit x 2)
  • Done.
  • "detached to Tidworth in England as an instructor": do we know what he was instructing, or who (e.g infantry reinforcements)?
  • I imagine so, his records say "Overseas Training Brigade", I know that there was a training battalion in the UK for each infantry brigade at one point, but they are usually numbered. I've never come across this brigade before.
  • slightly inconsistent: "World War I" and "First World War"
  • Fixed.
  • "File:Daveyvc.jpg" might need a freedom of panorama tag ({{FoP-Australia}})
        • Not quite - since the engravings are not covered by FOP, we need to include an explicit tag indicating that they are out of copyright due to age. In theory we could quibble over whether the photographer has any copyright claim at all, but I'm not too fussed about that piece. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:19, 11 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • "On 15 March 1917, Davey was accidentally wounded by a hand grenade...": I think this probably would have been around Ypres just following the German withdrawal to the Hindenburg Line?
  • Added some info.
  • "and in October he was gassed...": would most likely have been during the prelude to the Battle of Broodseinde
  • pulled some detail out of Lock.
  • the action around Merris was a peaceful penetration action in the lull between the defeat of the German Spring Offensive and the Allied Hundred Days offensive (see Les Carlyon, The Great War, p. 635 - I can add this for you if you would like)
  • added link to peaceful penetration.

Support Comments from Ian

  • Nicely done but it does seem a little brief compared to some other A-Class bios on VCs... Did we check Macklin's Bravest or Staunton's Victoria Cross to see if there was further detail?
  • Have ordered them to check.
  • Well you can only go with what's available -- if you've checked them as well as the other sources you've employed then I think you've done as much as can be expected. I note that the article is almost 1kb larger than when I first looked anyway. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 07:18, 17 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Otherwise pretty happy with prose after copyediting, but let me know any concerns there.
  • All good.
  • Concur with Zawed that image licensing seems problem-free.
  • Sources look okay reliability-wise (have to admit I'm not sure entirely sure about Lock at first glance but it's not being used to cite anything controversial); the formatting of some refs looks a bit odd to me though, and I might just have a go at them myself.
  • Despite its age, Lock is still the go-to history of the 10th. Esp for bios of important characters and day-by-day movements of the battalion.

Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 07:15, 7 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, the formatting isn’t so odd when I see we’re using Harv... ;-) I think that’s probably better restricted to citing books, where your identifier is author and year of publication – it does seem a bit strange to be citing websites and newspapers with titles in standard case, when those same titles are (correctly) in italics in the References section, and with years of publication when those mean very little in the ever-evolving online world. I wouldn't withhold support over this but presentation-wise and for ease of access (click once) I think it’d be preferable to use the news and web citation templates inline, and just retain Harv cites for the book refs. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 21:35, 7 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I've been using this sfn/harvid combination for sources for years, including plenty of FAs, and no-one has ever mentioned it before. With websites the short citation indicates when the website was accessed without having to look at the long citation. I've italicised the newspaper citation, which was an oversight. Thanks for taking a look, Ian! I'll update this when I lay eyes on Macklin and Staunton. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 05:54, 8 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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