Talk:George Dewey

Untitled

What is General Merrit's first name? -- Zoe

Ah. I found it. -- Zoe ytt

According to www.history.navy.mil/bios/dewey_george.htm

George Dewey was commissioned Admiral of the Navy with date of rank 2 March 1899.

NADM?

I'm going to take out NADM from the intro and infobox, since it's sort of technical. It says he was an admiral soon anyway --AW 07:11, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Service dates?

Years of service doesn't match dates of rank. I can't fix it since I don't know which is right.

Full name?

Dewey's full name, as found in most historical sources, was "George W." Is there a reason this wasn't included? (Probably it stood was for "George Washington," but I haven't been able to verify that.) --Michael K. Smith (talk) 01:50, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Article issues need a reversion or a large rewrite

I came here for a quick look Admiral Dewey, but was surprised to find that the vast majority of its material appears to be quoted directly from William J. Lawrence's A Concise Life of Admiral George Dewey – so much so that nearly all the material in the article is between quotation marks! Worse, the book itself appears to have been written not as a classical biography, but as a "ripping yarn" about a personal hero. Incorporating its material verbatim violates all manner of Wikipedia policies and guidelines; e.g., {{biased}}, {{inappropriate person}}, {{onesource}}, {{quotefarm}}, {{story}}, {{tone}}, {{unbalanced}}, {{unencyclopedic}}, and probably others. (One bright spot is that it probably doesn't violate {{copyright}} because the 1899 original is almost certainly public-domain (PD) now.) I only tagged it with the main issues to avoid the laundry list (per Template:Article issues#Usage) and avoid unnecessarily impuning Dimadick's commendable effort and obvious dedication to the subject.

But in the end, this must be an encyclopedia article, and it must be written primarily by Wikipedians. (We do have many articles that are largely taken from works like the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica, but they are encyclopedic and have these PD sources clearly stated as fundamental; i.e., incorporating much material without specific citations.) I believe that the article should either be reverted to its 17:35, 27 September 2008 version (possibly re-adding later edits to the portions that are more encyclopedic), or it should be heavily rewritten to say much of what it currently does without trying to be an adverture tale. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 19:29, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Admiral of the Navy rank held by multiple persons?

In the "Hero" section, it says that: "The U.S. Congress revived the title of Admiral of the Navy—previously held by only two men—and awarded it to Dewey." However, it later says in the "Dates of Rank" section that "[Dewey] was the only person ever to hold this rank". In the Admiral of the Navy page, it says that "the only American ever to hold it was George Dewey." How does this all add up? Did two other, non-american men hold the rank? Or is there an error somewhere here? I don't know much about the United States Navy, so can someone clarify this? Thank you! --Roujo (talk) 20:51, 2 December 2010 (UTC)