Wikipedia:WikiProject Ships/Peer review/HMS Endeavour

HMS Endeavour

After much expansion this managed to get to GA late last year, and I'm interested in suggestions for further improvement. Any and all comments and opinions welcomed. Euryalus (talk) 01:14, 8 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Benea

Comment - Why is the article at HM Bark Endeavour and not HMS Endeavour (1768), per WP:Naming conventions (ships)? Benea (talk) 00:47, 11 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

For no better reason than I foolishly rewrote it without paying enough attention to the naming guideline. Happy to move it but one question - this Endeavour is significantly better known than any others of the same name. Following the naming logic here, this article should presumably be at HMS Endeavour with the disambiguation page moved to HMS Endeavour (disambiguation). What do you think? Euryalus (talk) 01:39, 11 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I was wondering that myself. I've no objection to doing it that way. We use that convention sparingly (only 3 times in the RN), but I think this is a reasonable example of 'most well known ship of that name'. Benea (talk) 02:25, 11 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

My understanding, based on volunteering as a tour guide at the Australian National Maritime Museum, where the Endeavour replica is docked, is that HM Bark or HMB is the prefix formally associated with Endeavour in this day and age...see these [1][2][3] museum pages on HMB Endeavour (the third page also claims that all surviving Admiralty documents refer to the ship as Bark Endeavour). However, HMS Endeavour seems to be in more common usage: Google Books searches for each name plus "Captain Cook" (to filter out false positives) came up with 8 for HMB, 155 for HM Bark, and 511 for HMS. Do with this information what you will. -- saberwyn 06:03, 12 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Additional. Looking at some of the books from the Google Book searches, a few make the claim that this ship was called HM Bark because the previous HMS Endeavour (1763), a sloop, was still operating.[4][5] -- saberwyn 06:10, 12 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That's interesting, J.J. Colledge also lists her as 'Endeavour Bark'. The situation of having ships of the same name in service at the same time is all too common for the Endeavours. Three ships of that name entered service in 1694 (a bomb vessel, a fire ship and a hoy), and two in 1763 (a sloop and a cutter). The prefix of 'HMS' only enters usage towards the end of the eighteenth century, and only for ship-rigged vessels, that were actually 'His Majesty's Ship...'. Other vessels would be referred to as 'His Majesty's sloop ...', 'His Majesty's cutter...', or 'His Britannic Majesty's cutter ...' and so on. HMS Ark Royal (1587) would never have been referred to be her contemporaries as 'HMS Ark Royal', just Ark Royal. Since our convention is to standardise and backdate military prefixes, an RN ship named Endeavour and acquired/launched in 1652 would be titled 'HMS Endeavour (1652)'. If we were titling this article to fit our conventions it would be at 'HMS Endeavour (1768)', or 'HMS Endeavour' if we decided that this one vessel clearly fitted the 'most well known ship of the name' clause. We had a similar situation not too long ago with the Bounty (HMAV Bounty, HM armed vessel Bounty or HMS Bounty?) that saw the article settled at HMS Bounty. Benea (talk) 15:53, 12 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As an idle addition, Cook himnself formally referred to it as "His Most Britannick Majesty's Bark Endeavour" in is journal, but most commonly simply called it Endeavour with no prefixes. Euryalus (talk) 21:09, 12 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Done Per what might be a mild consensus here, I've been bold and moved the pages. I think this fits well with the ships naming convention:

the article name should use "HMS" even where that prefix was not yet in common use (ie it can be backdated);
where there are multiple ships of the same name they should be separated by year of construction, but where one is overwhelmingly the best known of that name it can be recorded simply as the actual name (for a similar example, HMS Victory); and
The general naming convention at WP:NAME recommends using the most common modern name for the article subject. The most common modern name for this ship is unarguably HMS Endeavour, despite that not being the name she was registered under and the terminology not yet being in general use.

Obviously if there is objection to the move let me know and I'll move it back while discussion continues. Euryalus (talk) 04:53, 13 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Nick-D

This is a very good article. My comments are:

I suggest that you specify that Endeavour was the first European ship to reach NZ since Abel Tasman as it is likely that Polynesian ships reached NZ in this period
This might be a myth, but I've read that Cook selected Endeavour on the basis of his previous experience with colliers on England's east coast - is this correct?
"what is now known as Botany Bay" should read "what he later named Botany Bay" given that it was Cook who provided this name
The article should mention that Cook proclaimed sovereignty over Australia at Possession Island en-route to Batavia
The ship is referred to as both 'she' and 'it'; my understanding of Wikipedia's convention on this matter is that both are acceptable but that usage should be consistent in each article
I'm not sure if the Hessian soldiers should be referred to as mercenaries - Hessian (soldiers) says that they were and weren't mercenaries though, so it isn't much help!
There are some PD paintings of Endeavour on the National Library of Australia's website which can be accessed via [6]
Is it worth noting that the Space Shuttle Endeavour was named after the ship? (along with three different RNZN ships, countless streets in Australia and NZ, etc). Nick-D (talk) 08:31, 11 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the suggestions, some responses in order of the above:

Done
Done - It's a myth, though an enduring one. Cook would have been familiar with colliers as an apprentice in Whitby but the Admiralty bought the Earl of Pembroke when the proposed commander was still Dalrymple, and before Cook had been suggested. The article doesn't really make this clear as I was trying to focus on the ship rather than the captain, but if there's a view its worth including I'll think of a way to work it in.
Done
~~Thanks, will have a look at working this in.~~ Done
Done
~~Hmmm ... will have to do some background reading on Hessians.~~ Done
Done ~~Great pictures, thanks for finding these. The article relies too heavily on images of the replica instead of the real thing, so I'll swap some around over the next few days.~~ I've added one image from NLA, and requested another via email. Most of the images viewable online are either maps or of Banks' flora collection, which I'll see if I can work into related articles.
~~Possibly in the relics or replica section at the end? Will see where it might fit~~ Not done After some reflection I'd prefer to leave the hatnote as the principal link to these other uses. The article sticks fairly closely to the exact topic, being the original ship, and only moves away in the (perhaps unnecessary) replica section. The Space Shuttle is the most prominent thing named after Endeavour, but there's also a range of place names, various other ships and so on. Obviously, omitting the Space shuttle from this article this is a personal opinion - other views welcome.

Overall, thanks for the great feedback, let me know if there's anything else seems worth improving here. Euryalus (talk) 01:24, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Patton123

This is a great article, the current structure is great and I'm sure it will make FA soon enough. I saw no concerns major enough to put here, but there are quite a few little prose slip-ups and i suggest getting a good copyeditor from our logistics department to help you out there.--Patton^t/c 13:23, 12 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Since this is a WP:SHIPS PR with a redirect at MILHIST, Patton is referring to MILHIST's logistics department: Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Logistics -MBK₀₀₄ 18:10, 12 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Will do. Euryalus (talk) 01:24, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

saberwyn

Random question, should the ship be referred to as "the Endeavour". I was always under the impression that referring to a British ship as "the Foo" was incorrect. -- saberwyn 04:33, 20 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You would be correct. There was a conversation at one time about not having "the" before ship names. --Brad (talk) 01:53, 10 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Done by Saberwyn.

Brad101

Your photos are not following the MOS. It basically means that pics starting at the top of the article should run right/left/right/left etc but no left aligned pics directly under a ===subsection===. With the exception of the infobox photo, all others should be set to |thumb| only; no |XXXpx|.
Your references need work. Any of the books used in this article should be moved down to a bibliography section using {{cite book}} with the inline citations denoting page numbers. --Brad (talk) 01:53, 10 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, will address these in the next few days. Euryalus (talk) 13:09, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Done - I also added the RIMAP paper to the bibliography, as its cited so often that moving it "declutters" the refs. Not sure if this presents a format problem. Euryalus (talk) 10:57, 22 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]